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

New Moon in Virgo

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 17 September 2020 at 11:00 UTC.

Moonrise and moonset

The moon rises at sunrise and sets at sunset. It's part facing the Earth is completely in shadow.

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 ♍ Virgo

Moon is leaving the last ∠4° of ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♎ Libra later.

Hunter Moon after 14 days

Next Full Moon is the Hunter Moon of October 2020 after 14 days on 1 October 2020 at 21:05.

Spring tide

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.

Apparent angular diameter

Lunar disc is not visible from Earth. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1959" and ∠1910".

New lunation 256 / 1209

At 11:00 on this date the Moon completes the old and enters a new synodic month with lunation 256 of Meeus index or lunation 1209 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.35 days

The length of the lunation is 29 days, 8 hours and 31 minutes. It is 1 hour and 5 minutes shorter 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°).

Lunation length shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 4 hours and 13 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 1 hour and 56 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠341.2°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit is ∠341.2° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠357°.

Moon before perigee

11 days since point of apogee on 6 September 2020 at 06:31 in ♈ Aries the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next day until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 18 September 2020 at 13:44 in ♎ Libra.

Distance to Moon 365 848 km

The Moon is 365 848 km (227 327 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next day until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 359 081 km (223 123 mi).

Moon before descending node

6 days after ascending node on 10 September 2020 at 23:05 in ♊ Gemini the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 6 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 23 September 2020 at 12:33 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Moon after northern standstill

5 days since the last northern standstill on 12 September 2020 at 05:25 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠24.353° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 7 days to face maximum declination of ∠-24.458° at the point of next southern standstill on 24 September 2020 at 19:11 in ♑ Capricorn.

Draconic month

6 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♊ Gemini the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Sun-Moon-Earth syzygy

The Moon is in a New Moon geocentric conjunction with the Sun and thus forming Sun-Moon-Earth 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