New Moon on . The illuminated surface of the Moon is 0%. Lunar cycle is 1 day young.
* The exact date and time of this New Moon phase is on 17 August 2012 at 15:54 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 ∠23° of ♌ Leo tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Sturgeon Moon of August 2012 after 14 days on 31 August 2012 at 13:58.
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 ∠1863" and ∠1896".
At 15:54 on this date the Moon completes the old and enters a new synodic month with lunation 156 of Meeus index or lunation 1109 from Brown series.
The length of the lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 16 minutes. It is 24 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 28 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 41 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit is ∠283.7° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠312.9°.
7 days since point of apogee on 10 August 2012 at 10:51 in ♉ Taurus the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 6 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 23 August 2012 at 19:39 in ♏ Scorpio.
The Moon is 384 688 km (239 034 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 6 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 369 731 km (229 740 mi).
6 days after descending node on 11 August 2012 at 00:04 in ♊ Gemini the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 6 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 24 August 2012 at 11:38 in ♐ Sagittarius.
5 days since the last northern standstill on 12 August 2012 at 09:47 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠21.492° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 8 days to face maximum declination of ∠-21.379° at the point of next southern standstill on 25 August 2012 at 18:40 in ♐ Sagittarius.
20 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