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 9 October 2018 at 03:47 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 ♎ Libra tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Hunter Moon of October 2018 after 16 days on 24 October 2018 at 16:45.
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 ∠1922" and ∠1921".
At 18:01 on this date the Moon completes the old and enters a new synodic month with lunation 231 of Meeus index or lunation 1184 from Brown series.
The length of the lunation is 29 days, 9 hours and 45 minutes. It is 2 hours and 30 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 59 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 10 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit is ∠28° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠49.6°.
2 days since point of perigee on 5 October 2018 at 22:29 in ♌ Leo the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 9 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 17 October 2018 at 19:16 in ♑ Capricorn.
The Moon is 372 979 km (231 758 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 9 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 227 km (251 175 mi).
4 days after ascending node on 4 October 2018 at 03:10 in ♌ Leo the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 9 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 17 October 2018 at 12:03 in ♒ Aquarius.
5 days since the last northern standstill on 2 October 2018 at 13:03 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠21.037° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 7 days to face maximum declination of ∠-21.154° at the point of next southern standstill on 15 October 2018 at 17:26 in ♑ Capricorn.
4 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♌ Leo the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first 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