First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 63% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 9 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 5 August 2003 at 07:28 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 leaving the last ∠1° of ♏ Scorpio tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♐ Sagittarius later.
Next Full Moon is the Sturgeon Moon of August 2003 after 5 days on 12 August 2003 at 04:48.
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.
Lunar disc appears visually 4.1% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1971" and ∠1892".
The Moon is 9 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 44 of Meeus index or 997 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 34 minutes and it is 51 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. 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°).
The length of the current synodic month is 2 hours and 10 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 59 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠268.5° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠301°.
Moon is at perigee at 14:06 about 14 days since last apogee on 22 July 2003 at 19:37 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 19 August 2003 at 14:22 in ♉ Taurus.
This perigee Moon is 369 437 km (229 558 mi) away from Earth. It is 6 929 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 919 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.
Moon is in descending node in ♏ Scorpio at 06:49 crossing the ecliptic from North to South. Lunar position remains south of if for the upcoming 13 days until Moon's next ascending node later on 19 August 2003 at 21:08 in ♉ Taurus.
10 days since the last northern standstill on 27 July 2003 at 03:55 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠26.493° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 2 days to face maximum declination of ∠-26.553° at the point of next southern standstill on 9 August 2003 at 06:19 in ♑ Capricorn.
13 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♉ Taurus the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.
In 5 days on 12 August 2003 at 04:48 in ♒ Aquarius 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