Waning
Gibbous ♐ Sagittarius
Moon phase on 18 April 2003 Friday is Waning Gibbous, 16 days old Moon is in Scorpio.
Share this page: twitter facebook linkedinWaning Gibbous is the lunar phase on . Seen from Earth, illuminated fraction of the Moon surface is 96% and getting smaller. The 16 days old Moon is in ♏ Scorpio.
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Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 1 day on 16 April 2003 at 19:36.
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 is passing about ∠22° of ♏ Scorpio tropical zodiac sector.
Lunar disc appears visually 3.1% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1970" and ∠1911".
Next Full Moon is the Flower Moon of May 2003 after 27 days on 16 May 2003 at 03:36.
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.
The Moon is 16 days old. Earth's natural satellite is moving from the middle to the last part of current synodic month. This is lunation 40 of Meeus index or 993 from Brown series.
Length of current 40 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 next lunation 41 length.
Length of current synodic month is 4 hours and 12 minutes longer than the mean length of synodic month, but it is still 2 hours and 51 minutes shorter, compared to 21st century longest.
This lunation true anomaly is ∠157.7°. At the beginning of next synodic month true anomaly will be ∠181.7°. The length of upcoming synodic months will keep decreasing since the true anomaly gets closer to the value of New Moon at point of perigee (∠0° or ∠360°).
1 day after point of perigee on 17 April 2003 at 04:58 in ♏ Scorpio. The lunar orbit is getting wider, while the Moon is moving outward the Earth. It will keep this direction for the next 12 days, until it get to the point of next apogee on 1 May 2003 at 07:39 in ♉ Taurus.
Moon is 363 828 km (226 072 mi) away from Earth on this date. Moon moves farther next 12 days until apogee, when Earth-Moon distance will reach 406 530 km (252 606 mi).
12 days after its ascending node on 5 April 2003 at 21:41 in ♉ Taurus, the Moon is following the northern part of its orbit for the next day, until it will cross the ecliptic from North to South in descending node on 19 April 2003 at 00:24 in ♐ Sagittarius.
12 days after beginning of current draconic month in ♉ Taurus, the Moon is moving from the beginning to the first part of it.
9 days after previous North standstill on 9 April 2003 at 03:25 in ♋ Cancer, when Moon has reached northern declination of ∠26.383°. Next 3 days the lunar orbit moves southward to face South declination of ∠-26.442° in the next southern standstill on 21 April 2003 at 17:59 in ♑ Capricorn.
After 13 days on 1 May 2003 at 12:15 in ♉ Taurus, the Moon will be in New Moon geocentric conjunction with the Sun and this alignment forms next Sun-Moon-Earth syzygy.