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

Waning Gibbous in Libra

Waning Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 95% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 16 days old.

Moonrise and moonset

The 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 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 ♎ Libra

Moon is passing about ∠25° of ♎ Libra tropical zodiac sector.

1 day after Full Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 1 day on 19 March 2011 at 18:10.

Worm Moon before 1 day

Next Full Moon is the Pink Moon of April 2011 after 27 days on 18 April 2011 at 02:44.

Moderate tide

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.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1964"

Lunar disc appears visually 1.9% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1964" and ∠1926".

Lunation 138 / 1091

The Moon is 16 days old and navigating from the middle to the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 138 of Meeus index or 1091 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.74 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 17 hours and 46 minutes and it is 1 hour and 28 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°).

Lunation length longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 5 hours and 2 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 2 hours and 1 minute shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠167°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠167° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠190.9°.

Moon after perigee

1 day since point of perigee on 19 March 2011 at 19:09 in ♍ Virgo the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 11 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 2 April 2011 at 09:00 in ♓ Pisces.

Distance to Moon 365 010 km

The Moon is 365 010 km (226 807 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 11 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 406 656 km (252 684 mi).

Moon before ascending node

8 days after descending node on 13 March 2011 at 11:55 in ♊ Gemini the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 4 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 25 March 2011 at 21:09 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Moon before southern standstill

8 days since the last northern standstill on 12 March 2011 at 17:06 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠23.825° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 3 days to face maximum declination of ∠-23.716° at the point of next southern standstill on 25 March 2011 at 05:02 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

22 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 13 days

In 13 days on 3 April 2011 at 14:32 in ♈ Aries the Moon is going to be in a New Moon geocentric conjunction with the Sun and thus forming the next Sun-Moon-Earth 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