First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 60% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 8 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 9 February 2003 at 11:11 UTC.
The moon rises at noon and sets at midnight. It is visible high in the southern sky in early evening.
Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.
Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.
Moon is passing first ∠3° of ♊ Gemini tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Snow Moon of February 2003 after 6 days on 16 February 2003 at 23:51.
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.
Lunar disc appears visually 8.6% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1784" and ∠1944".
The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 38 of Meeus index or 991 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 15 hours and 47 minutes and it is 57 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°).
The length of the current synodic month is 3 hours and 3 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠90.6° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠127.8°.
2 days since point of apogee on 7 February 2003 at 21:58 in ♈ Aries the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 9 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 19 February 2003 at 16:19 in ♍ Virgo.
The Moon is 401 829 km (249 685 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 9 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 364 844 km (226 704 mi).
Moon is in ascending node in ♉ Taurus at 17:39 crossing the ecliptic from South to North. Lunar position remains north of if for the upcoming 13 days until Moon's next descending node later on 23 February 2003 at 15:47 in ♏ Scorpio.
11 days since the last southern standstill on 30 January 2003 at 00:31 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-25.834° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 2 days to face maximum declination of ∠25.923° at the point of next northern standstill on 13 February 2003 at 10:59 in ♋ Cancer.
At 17:39 in the point ot ascending node the Moon is completing the last draconic month and is entering a new one while the lunar orbit is crossing the ecliptic from South to North.
In 6 days on 16 February 2003 at 23:51 in ♌ Leo the Moon is going to be in a Full Moon geocentric opposition with the Sun and thus forming the next Sun-Earth-Moon syzygy alignment.
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