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

Full Moon in Virgo

Full Moon on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 99%. The lunar cycle is 15 days old.

* The exact date and time of this Full Moon phase is on 24 February 2024 at 12:30 UTC.

Moonrise and moonset

The moon rises at sunset and sets at sunrise. It is visible all night and it is high in the sky around midnight.

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 passing about ∠17° of ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector.

It is Snow Moon

The Full Moon these days is the Snow of February 2024.

Super spring tide

There is extremely high Full Moon ocean tide on this date. Combined Sun and Moon gravitational tidal force working on Earth is heavy, because of the Sun-Earth-Moon syzygy alignment and the near perigee.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1768"

Lunar disc appears visually 9.2% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1938".

Lunation 298 / 1251

The Moon is 15 days old and navigating through the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 298 of Meeus index or 1251 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.42 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 1 minute and it is 41 minutes longer 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 2 hours and 43 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 26 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠345.9°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠345.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠1.4°.

Moon at apogee

Moon is at apogee at 15:00 about 14 days since last perigee on 10 February 2024 at 18:49 in ♒ Aquarius the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 13 days until point of next perigee on 10 March 2024 at 07:06 in ♓ Pisces.

Distance to Moon 406 316 km

This apogee Moon is 406 316 km (252 473 mi) away from Earth. It is 908 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 393 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.

Moon before descending node

11 days after ascending node on 13 February 2024 at 17:01 in ♈ Aries the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 2 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 27 February 2024 at 22:53 in ♎ Libra.

Moon after northern standstill

6 days since the last northern standstill on 19 February 2024 at 08:47 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠28.376° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 8 days to face maximum declination of ∠-28.477° at the point of next southern standstill on 5 March 2024 at 02:03 in ♑ Capricorn.

Draconic month

11 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♈ Aries the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Sun-Earth-Moon syzygy

The Moon is in a Full Moon geocentric opposition with the Sun and thus forming 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