New Moon on . The illuminated surface of the Moon is 1%. Lunar cycle is 1 day young.
* The exact date and time of this New Moon phase is on 13 November 2012 at 22:08 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 first ∠1° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Beaver Moon of November 2012 after 14 days on 28 November 2012 at 14:46.
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 ∠1972" and ∠1940".
At 22:08 on this date the Moon completes the old and enters a new synodic month with lunation 159 of Meeus index or lunation 1112 from Brown series.
The length of the lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 34 minutes. It is 28 minutes shorter than the next 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 2 hours and 10 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 59 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit is ∠351.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠6.8°.
Moon is at perigee at 10:21 about 12 days since last apogee on 1 November 2012 at 15:30 in ♊ Gemini the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 14 days until point of next apogee on 28 November 2012 at 19:35 in ♊ Gemini.
This perigee Moon is 357 361 km (222 054 mi) away from Earth. It is 5 147 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 12 995 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.
Moon is in ascending node in ♏ Scorpio at 04:37 crossing the ecliptic from South to North. Lunar position remains north of if for the upcoming 13 days until Moon's next descending node later on 27 November 2012 at 17:05 in ♉ Taurus.
12 days since the last northern standstill on 2 November 2012 at 08:15 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠20.920° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠-20.914° at the point of next southern standstill on 15 November 2012 at 16:10 in ♐ Sagittarius.
At 04:37 in the point ot ascending node the Moon is completing the last draconic month and is entering a new one while the lunar orbit is crossing the ecliptic from South to North.
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