Waxing Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 22% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 5 days young.
The moon rises in the morning and sets in the evening. It is visible toward the southwest in early evening.
Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.
Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.
Moon is passing about ∠24° of ♉ Taurus tropical zodiac sector.
Previous main lunar phase is the New Moon before 5 days on 13 March 2021 at 10:21.
Next Full Moon is the Worm Moon of March 2021 after 10 days on 28 March 2021 at 18:48.
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.
Lunar disc appears visually 8.6% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1927".
The Moon is 5 days young and navigating from the beginning to the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 262 of Meeus index or 1215 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 16 hours and 10 minutes and it is 19 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°).
The length of the current synodic month is 3 hours and 26 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 37 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠124.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠154.8°.
Moon is at apogee at 05:04 about 15 days since last perigee on 2 March 2021 at 05:19 in ♎ Libra the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 11 days until point of next perigee on 30 March 2021 at 06:12 in ♏ Scorpio.
This apogee Moon is 405 253 km (251 813 mi) away from Earth. It is 155 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 1 456 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.
12 days after descending node on 6 March 2021 at 00:56 in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following day until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 20 March 2021 at 03:31 in ♊ Gemini.
10 days since the last southern standstill on 7 March 2021 at 20:45 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-25.161° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 3 days to face maximum declination of ∠25.307° at the point of next northern standstill on 22 March 2021 at 08:35 in ♋ Cancer.
25 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♊ Gemini the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.
In 10 days on 28 March 2021 at 18:48 in ♎ Libra 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.
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