New
Moon* ♉ Taurus
Moon phase for
Image credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio.
New Moon
New Moon is the lunar phase on . Surface of the Moon disc is not illuminated. The 1 day young Moon is in ♈ Aries.
* The exact date and time of this New Moon phase is on 21 April 2012 at 07:18 UTC.
Moon phases for next 7 days
Saturday Sat
Sunday Sun
Monday Mon
Tuesday Tue
Wednesday Wed
Thursday Thu
Friday Fri
Moon phase and lunation details
Moonrise and moonset
Moon rises at sunrise and sets at sunset. It's part facing the Earth is completely in shadow.
Moon in ♈ Aries
Moon is passing about ∠22° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector.
Apparent angular diameter
Lunar disc is not visible from Earth. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1775" and ∠1909".
Flower Moon after 15 days
Next Full Moon is the Flower Moon of May 2012 after 15 days on 6 May 2012 at 03:35.
Upcoming main Moon phases
- New Moon in Taurus ♉ on 21 April 2012 at 07:18
- First Quarter in Leo ♌ on 29 April 2012 at 09:58
- Full Moon in Scorpio ♏ on 6 May 2012 at 03:35
- Last Quarter in Aquarius ♒ on 12 May 2012 at 21:47
Spring tide
There is high New Moon ocean tide on this date. Combined Sun and Moon gravitational tidal force working on Earth is strong, because of the Sun-Moon-Earth syzygy alignment.
New lunation 151 / 1104
At 14:37 on this date the Moon completes the old and enters a new synodic month with lunation 151 of Meeus index or 1104 from Brown series.
Synodic month length 29.7 days
29 days, 16 hours and 41 minutes is the length of new lunation 151. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2012. It is 12 minutes longer than next lunation 152 length.
Lunation length longer than mean
Length of current synodic month is 3 hours and 57 minutes longer than the mean length of synodic month, but it is still 3 hours and 6 minutes shorter, compared to 21st century longest.
Lunar orbit position on
True anomaly ∠142.2°
This New Moon true anomaly is ∠142.2°. At beginning of next synodic month true anomaly will be ∠168.7°. The length of upcoming synodic months will keep increasing since the true anomaly gets closer to the value of New Moon at point of apogee (∠180°).
Moon before apogee
12 days after point of perigee on 7 April 2012 at 16:59 in ♎ Libra. The lunar orbit is getting wider, while the Moon is moving outward the Earth. It will keep this direction for the next 2 days, until it get to the point of next apogee on 22 April 2012 at 13:49 in ♉ Taurus.
Distance to Moon 403 798 km
Moon is 403 798 km (250 908 mi) away from Earth on this date. Moon moves farther next 2 days until apogee, when Earth-Moon distance will reach 406 422 km (252 539 mi).
Moon before descending node
10 days after its ascending node on 10 April 2012 at 00:47 in ♐ Sagittarius, the Moon is following the northern part of its orbit for the next 3 days, until it will cross the ecliptic from North to South in descending node on 24 April 2012 at 03:44 in ♊ Gemini.
Draconic month
10 days after beginning of current draconic month in ♐ Sagittarius, the Moon is moving from the beginning to the first part of it.
Moon before northern standstill
9 days after previous South standstill on 10 April 2012 at 21:03 in ♐ Sagittarius, when Moon has reached southern declination of ∠-21.814°. Next 4 days the lunar orbit moves northward to face North declination of ∠21.738° in the next northern standstill on 25 April 2012 at 05:37 in ♊ Gemini.
Sun-Moon-Earth syzygy
The Moon is in New Moon geocentric conjunction with the Sun on this date and this alignment forms Sun-Moon-Earth syzygy.