Waning Gibbous Moon
Waning Gibbous MoonImage credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio.(large image)

Waning Gibbous in Aries

Waning Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 94% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 17 days old.

Moonrise and moonset

The moon rises in the evening and sets in the morning. It is visible to the southwest and it is high in the sky after midnight.

Moon phases on nearby dates

Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.

Upcoming main moon phases

Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.

Moon phase and lunation details

Moon is entering ♈ Aries

Moon is passing first ∠1° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector.

2 days after Full Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 2 days on 22 August 2002 at 22:29.

Sturgeon Moon before 2 days

Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon of September 2002 after 27 days on 21 September 2002 at 13:59.

Moderate tide

There is medium ocean tide on this date. Sun and Moon gravitational forces are not aligned, but meet at very acute angle, so their combined tidal force is moderate.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1769"

Lunar disc appears visually 7% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1769" and ∠1898".

Lunation 32 / 985

The Moon is 17 days old and navigating from the middle to the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 32 of Meeus index or 985 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.33 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 7 hours and 55 minutes and it is 12 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's shortest synodic month of 2002. The lengths of the following synodic months are going to decrease with the lunar orbit true anomaly getting closer to the value it has at the point of New Moon at perigee (∠0° or ∠360°).

Lunation length shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 4 hours and 49 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 1 hour and 20 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠324.8°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠324.8° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠343.1°.

Moon before apogee

14 days since point of perigee on 10 August 2002 at 23:32 in ♍ Virgo the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next day until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 26 August 2002 at 17:43 in ♈ Aries.

Distance to Moon 405 101 km

The Moon is 405 101 km (251 718 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next day until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 405 694 km (252 087 mi).

Moon before ascending node

8 days after descending node on 17 August 2002 at 02:54 in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 6 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 31 August 2002 at 14:43 in ♊ Gemini.

Moon after southern standstill

6 days since the last southern standstill on 19 August 2002 at 00:37 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-25.159° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 8 days to face maximum declination of ∠25.282° at the point of next northern standstill on 2 September 2002 at 16:03 in ♋ Cancer.

Draconic month

21 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♊ Gemini the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 12 days

In 12 days on 7 September 2002 at 03:10 in ♍ Virgo the Moon is going to be in a New Moon geocentric conjunction with the Sun and thus forming the next Sun-Moon-Earth syzygy alignment.

Lunar calendar

Sources and credits

Parts of this Lunar Calendar are based on Planetary Ephemeris Data Courtesy of Fred Espenak, www.Astropixels.com

Moon phase image credit to NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio, svs.gsfc.nasa.gov