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

Full Moon in Aries

Full Moon on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 99%. The lunar cycle is 14 days old.

* The exact date and time of this Full Moon phase is on 21 October 2002 at 07:20 UTC.

Moonrise and moonset

The moon rises at sunset and sets at sunrise. It is visible all night and it is high in the sky around 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 in ♈ Aries

Moon is passing about ∠18° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector.

It is Hunter Moon

The Full Moon these days is the Hunter of October 2002.

Super spring tide

There is extremely high Full Moon ocean tide on this date. Combined Sun and Moon gravitational tidal force working on Earth is heavy, because of the Sun-Earth-Moon syzygy alignment and the near perigee.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1768"

Lunar disc appears visually 8.6% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1927".

Lunation 34 / 987

The Moon is 14 days old and navigating through the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 34 of Meeus index or 987 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.39 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 9 hours and 17 minutes and it is 1 hour and 43 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. The lengths of the following synodic months are going to increase with the lunar orbit true anomaly getting closer to the value it has at the point of New Moon at apogee (∠180°).

Lunation length shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 3 hours and 27 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 2 hours and 42 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠358.6°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠358.6° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠14°.

Moon at apogee

Moon is at apogee at 04:41 about 13 days since last perigee on 6 October 2002 at 13:17 in ♎ Libra the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 14 days until point of next perigee on 4 November 2002 at 00:50 in ♏ Scorpio.

Distance to Moon 406 358 km

This apogee Moon is 406 358 km (252 499 mi) away from Earth. It is 950 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 351 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.

Moon before ascending node

10 days after descending node on 10 October 2002 at 07:07 in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 4 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 24 October 2002 at 18:18 in ♊ Gemini.

Moon before northern standstill

8 days since the last southern standstill on 12 October 2002 at 11:51 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-25.624° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 6 days to face maximum declination of ∠25.735° at the point of next northern standstill on 27 October 2002 at 06:34 in ♋ Cancer.

Draconic month

22 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.

Sun-Earth-Moon syzygy

The Moon is in a Full Moon geocentric opposition with the Sun and thus forming Sun-Earth-Moon 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