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

Waxing Gibbous in Cancer

Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 68% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 9 days young.

Moonrise and moonset

The moon rises in the afternoon and sets after midnight to early morning. It is visible to the southeast in early evening and it is up for most of the night.

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 ♋ Cancer

Moon is passing about ∠11° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.

1 day after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 1 day on 8 March 2014 at 13:27.

Worm Moon after 6 days

Next Full Moon is the Worm Moon of March 2014 after 6 days on 16 March 2014 at 17:09.

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 ∠1773"

Lunar disc appears visually 8.5% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1773" and ∠1932".

Lunation 175 / 1128

The Moon is 9 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 175 of Meeus index or 1128 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.45 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 45 minutes and it is 45 minutes shorter than the upcoming 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°).

Lunation length shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 1 hour and 59 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 10 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠25.1°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠25.1° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠46.9°.

Moon before apogee

10 days since point of perigee on 27 February 2014 at 19:52 in ♒ Aquarius the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next day until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 11 March 2014 at 19:46 in ♋ Cancer.

Distance to Moon 404 180 km

The Moon is 404 180 km (251 146 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next day until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 405 367 km (251 883 mi).

Moon after descending node

5 days after descending node on 4 March 2014 at 17:45 in ♈ Aries the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 8 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 19 March 2014 at 06:30 in ♎ Libra.

Moon after northern standstill

1 day since the last northern standstill on 8 March 2014 at 22:54 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠19.084° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 12 days to face maximum declination of ∠-18.997° at the point of next southern standstill on 23 March 2014 at 07:28 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

18 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♎ Libra the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 6 days

In 6 days on 16 March 2014 at 17:09 in ♍ Virgo the Moon is going to be in a Full Moon geocentric opposition with the Sun and thus forming the next Sun-Earth-Moon 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