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 20 April 2023 at 04:12 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 ∠4° of ♉ Taurus tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Flower Moon of May 2023 after 15 days on 5 May 2023 at 17:34.
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 ∠1884" and ∠1910".
At 04:12 on this date the Moon completes the old and enters a new synodic month with lunation 288 of Meeus index or lunation 1241 from Brown series.
The length of the lunation is 29 days, 11 hours and 41 minutes. It is 1 hour and 3 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 1 hour and 3 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 6 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit is ∠59.2° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠92.6°.
4 days since point of perigee on 16 April 2023 at 02:22 in ♓ Pisces the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 7 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 28 April 2023 at 06:43 in ♌ Leo.
The Moon is 380 468 km (236 412 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 7 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 300 km (251 220 mi).
Moon is in ascending node in ♉ Taurus at 11:32 crossing the ecliptic from South to North. Lunar position remains north of if for the upcoming 14 days until Moon's next descending node later on 4 May 2023 at 21:57 in ♎ Libra.
8 days since the last southern standstill on 12 April 2023 at 03:15 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-27.947° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 4 days to face maximum declination of ∠27.957° at the point of next northern standstill on 25 April 2023 at 05:53 in ♋ Cancer.
At 11:32 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