First
Quarter ♋ Cancer
First Quarter is the lunar phase on . Seen from Earth, illuminated fraction of the Moon surface is 45% and growing larger. The 7 days young Moon is in ♋ Cancer.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 9 April 2003 at 23:40 UTC.
Thursday Thu
Friday Fri
Saturday Sat
Sunday Sun
Monday Mon
Tuesday Tue
Wednesday Wed
Moon rises at noon and sets at midnight. It is visible high in the southern sky in early evening.
Moon is passing about ∠14° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.
Lunar disc appears visually 4.6% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1830" and ∠1916".
Next Full Moon is the Pink Moon of April 2003 after 7 days on 16 April 2003 at 19:36.
There is low ocean tide on this date. Sun and Moon gravitational forces are not aligned, but meet at big angle, so their combined tidal force is weak.
The Moon is 7 days young. Earth's natural satellite is moving through the first part of current synodic month. This is lunation 40 of Meeus index or 993 from Brown series.
The length of the lunation is 29 days, 16 hours and 56 minutes. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2003. It is 51 minutes longer than the next lunation's length. The lengths of the following synodic months are going to decreasing with the true anomaly getting closer to the value it has at the point of New Moon at perigee (∠0° or ∠360°).
The length of the current synodic month is 4 hours and 12 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 2 hours and 51 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.
At the beginning of the lunation cycle the true anomaly is ∠157.7°. At the beginning of next synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠181.7°.
5 days after point of apogee on 4 April 2003 at 04:31 in ♉ Taurus. The lunar orbit is getting narrow, while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 7 days, until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 17 April 2003 at 04:58 in ♏ Scorpio.
The Moon is 391 716 km (243 401 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 7 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 357 158 km (221 928 mi).
3 days after ascending node on 5 April 2003 at 21:41 in ♉ Taurus. The Moon is located north of the ecliptic over the following 9 days, until the lunar orbit crosses from North to South in descending node on 19 April 2003 at 00:24 in ♐ Sagittarius.
3 days since the beginning of current draconic month in ♉ Taurus, the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the cycle.
At 03:25 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach North declination of ∠26.383°. Over the next 12 days the lunar orbit is going to extend southward to face maximum declination of ∠-26.442° at the point of next standstill in ♑ Capricorn on 21 April 2003 at 17:59.
In 7 days on 16 April 2003 at 19:36 in ♎ Libra 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.