Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 97% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 13 days young.
The moon rises in the afternoon and sets after midnight to early morning. It is visible to the southeast in early evening and it is up for most of the night.
Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.
Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.
Moon is passing about ∠10° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.
Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 6 days on 12 January 2011 at 11:31.
Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2011 after 1 day on 19 January 2011 at 21:21.
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 2.6% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1901" and ∠1950".
The Moon is 13 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 136 of Meeus index or 1089 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 17 hours and 28 minutes and it is 47 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 4 hours and 44 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 2 hours and 19 minutes 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 ∠103.5° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠139.2°.
8 days since point of apogee on 10 January 2011 at 05:38 in ♓ Pisces the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 3 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 22 January 2011 at 00:10 in ♍ Virgo.
The Moon is 377 148 km (234 349 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 3 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 362 793 km (225 429 mi).
Moon is in descending node in ♋ Cancer at 00:06 crossing the ecliptic from North to South. Lunar position remains south of if for the upcoming 12 days until Moon's next ascending node later on 30 January 2011 at 18:29 in ♐ Sagittarius.
1 day since the last northern standstill on 16 January 2011 at 22:51 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠24.221° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 11 days to face maximum declination of ∠-24.180° at the point of next southern standstill on 29 January 2011 at 16:26 in ♐ Sagittarius.
14 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♑ Capricorn the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.
In 1 day on 19 January 2011 at 21:21 in ♋ Cancer 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