New Moon on . The illuminated surface of the Moon is 1%. Lunar cycle is 1 day young.
* The exact date and time of this New Moon phase is on 8 May 2024 at 03:22 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 about ∠9° of ♉ Taurus tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Flower Moon of May 2024 after 16 days on 23 May 2024 at 13:53.
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 ∠1944" and ∠1901".
At 18:21 on this date the Moon completes the old and enters a new synodic month with lunation 300 of Meeus index or lunation 1253 from Brown series.
The length of the lunation is 29 days, 9 hours and 1 minute. This is the year's shortest synodic month of 2024. It is 15 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 3 hours and 43 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 2 hours and 26 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit is ∠17.2° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠36°.
1 day since point of perigee on 5 May 2024 at 22:11 in ♈ Aries the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 10 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 17 May 2024 at 19:00 in ♍ Virgo.
The Moon is 368 775 km (229 146 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 10 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 641 km (251 432 mi).
1 day after ascending node on 5 May 2024 at 21:54 in ♈ Aries the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 12 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 19 May 2024 at 16:35 in ♎ Libra.
8 days since the last southern standstill on 28 April 2024 at 14:28 in ♐ Sagittarius when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-28.509° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 3 days to face maximum declination of ∠28.465° at the point of next northern standstill on 11 May 2024 at 07:45 in ♋ Cancer.
1 day since the beginning of this draconic month in ♈ Aries the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.
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