New Moon on . The illuminated surface of the Moon is 0%. Lunar cycle is less than 1 day young.
* The exact date and time of this New Moon phase is on 20 May 2012 at 23:47 UTC.
The moon rises at sunrise and sets at sunset. It's part facing the Earth is completely in shadow.
Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.
Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.
Moon is passing about ∠6° of ♊ Gemini tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon of June 2012 after 13 days on 4 June 2012 at 11:12.
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.
Lunar disc is not visible from Earth. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1773" and ∠1895".
At 23:47 on this date the Moon completes the old and enters a new synodic month with lunation 153 of Meeus index or lunation 1106 from Brown series.
The length of the lunation is 29 days, 15 hours and 15 minutes. It is 1 hour and 53 minutes longer than the next 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 31 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 32 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit is ∠191.8° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠217.1°.
1 day since point of apogee on 19 May 2012 at 16:13 in ♉ Taurus the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 13 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 3 June 2012 at 13:19 in ♏ Scorpio.
The Moon is 404 289 km (251 214 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 13 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 358 483 km (222 751 mi).
Moon is in descending node in ♊ Gemini at 09:21 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 3 June 2012 at 20:38 in ♏ Scorpio.
13 days since the last southern standstill on 8 May 2012 at 06:18 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-21.719° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠21.709° at the point of next northern standstill on 22 May 2012 at 11:13 in ♊ Gemini.
14 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.
The Moon is in a New Moon geocentric conjunction with the Sun and thus forming Sun-Moon-Earth 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