Last Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 57% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 21 days old.
* The exact date and time of this Last Quarter phase is on 2 April 2024 at 03:15 UTC.
The moon rises at midnight and sets at noon. It is visible to the south in the morning.
Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.
Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.
Moon is passing first ∠4° of ♑ Capricorn tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Pink Moon of April 2024 after 22 days on 23 April 2024 at 23:49.
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 1.3% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1895" and ∠1919".
The Moon is 21 days old and navigating through the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 299 of Meeus index or 1252 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 9 hours and 20 minutes and it is 19 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°).
The length of the current synodic month is 3 hours and 24 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 2 hours and 45 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠1.4° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠17.2°.
8 days since point of apogee on 23 March 2024 at 15:44 in ♍ Virgo the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 6 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 7 April 2024 at 17:53 in ♓ Pisces.
The Moon is 378 235 km (235 024 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 6 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 358 850 km (222 979 mi).
6 days after descending node on 26 March 2024 at 04:07 in ♎ Libra the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 7 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 8 April 2024 at 12:20 in ♈ Aries.
At 08:58 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach South declination of ∠-28.559°. Over the upcoming 12 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt northward to face maximum declination of ∠28.552° at the point of next northern standstill in ♊ Gemini on 13 April 2024 at 22:36.
20 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♈ Aries the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.
In 7 days on 8 April 2024 at 18:21 in ♈ Aries the Moon is going to be in a New Moon geocentric conjunction with the Sun and thus forming the next 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