Waning Crescent on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 2% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 28 days old.
The moon rises after midnight to early morning and sets in the afternoon. It is visible in the early morning low to the east.
Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.
Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.
Moon is passing first ∠0° of ♈ Aries tropical zodiac sector.
Previous main lunar phase is the Last Quarter before 5 days on 2 April 2024 at 03:15.
Next Full Moon is the Pink Moon of April 2024 after 16 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 2.9% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1972" and ∠1916".
The Moon is 28 days old and navigating from the second to the final 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°.
Moon is at perigee at 17:53 about 15 days since last apogee on 23 March 2024 at 15:44 in ♍ Virgo the lunar orbit is going to widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth over the upcoming 12 days until point of next apogee on 20 April 2024 at 02:09 in ♍ Virgo.
This perigee Moon is 358 850 km (222 979 mi) away from Earth. It is 3 658 km closer than the mean perigee distance, but it is still 11 506 km further than the closest perigee of 21st century.
12 days after descending node on 26 March 2024 at 04:07 in ♎ Libra 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 8 April 2024 at 12:20 in ♈ Aries.
6 days since the last southern standstill on 1 April 2024 at 08:58 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-28.559° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 6 days to face maximum declination of ∠28.552° at the point of next northern standstill on 13 April 2024 at 22:36 in ♊ Gemini.
26 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 1 day 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