First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 61% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 8 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 12 March 2030 at 08:48 UTC.
The moon rises at noon and sets at midnight. It is visible high in the southern sky in early evening.
Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.
Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.
Moon is passing about ∠5° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Worm Moon of March 2030 after 6 days on 19 March 2030 at 17:56.
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 7.2% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1796" and ∠1930".
The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 373 of Meeus index or 1326 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 15 hours and 28 minutes and it is 42 minutes shorter 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 2 hours and 44 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 19 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠104.1° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠139°.
3 days since point of apogee on 10 March 2030 at 02:23 in ♉ Taurus the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 8 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 21 March 2030 at 22:00 in ♎ Libra.
The Moon is 399 196 km (248 049 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 8 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 362 974 km (225 542 mi).
1 day after descending node on 12 March 2030 at 06:43 in ♊ Gemini the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 11 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 25 March 2030 at 05:48 in ♐ Sagittarius.
1 day since the last northern standstill on 12 March 2030 at 01:51 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠23.130° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 11 days to face maximum declination of ∠-23.011° at the point of next southern standstill on 25 March 2030 at 03:57 in ♐ Sagittarius.
15 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.
In 6 days on 19 March 2030 at 17:56 in ♍ Virgo the Moon is going to be in a Full Moon geocentric opposition with the Sun and thus forming the next Sun-Earth-Moon 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