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

Full Moon in Scorpio

Full Moon on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 99%. The lunar cycle is 15 days old.

* The exact date and time of this Full Moon phase is on 16 April 2003 at 19:36 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 ♏ Scorpio

Moon is passing about ∠7° of ♏ Scorpio tropical zodiac sector.

It is Pink Moon

The Full Moon these days is the Pink of April 2003.

Spring tide

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

Apparent angular diameter ∠1973"

Lunar disc appears visually 3.2% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1973" and ∠1911".

Lunation 40 / 993

The Moon is 15 days old and navigating through the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 40 of Meeus index or 993 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.71 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 16 hours and 56 minutes and it is 51 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2003. 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 longer than mean

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.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠157.7°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠157.7° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠181.7°.

Moon at perigee

Moon is at perigee at 04:58 about 13 days since last apogee on 4 April 2003 at 04:31 in ♉ Taurus the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 13 days until point of next apogee on 1 May 2003 at 07:39 in ♉ Taurus.

Distance to Moon 357 158 km

This perigee Moon is 357 158 km (221 928 mi) away from Earth. It is 5 350 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 13 198 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.

Moon before descending node

11 days after ascending node on 5 April 2003 at 21:41 in ♉ Taurus the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following day until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 19 April 2003 at 00:24 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Moon before southern standstill

8 days since the last northern standstill on 9 April 2003 at 03:25 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠26.383° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 4 days to face maximum declination of ∠-26.442° at the point of next southern standstill on 21 April 2003 at 17:59 in ♑ Capricorn.

Draconic month

11 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♉ Taurus the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first 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