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

Waning Gibbous in Virgo

Waning Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 71% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 20 days old.

Moonrise and moonset

The moon rises in the evening and sets in the morning. It is visible to the southwest and it is high in the sky after 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 leaving the last ∠1° of ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♎ Libra later.

5 days after Full Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 5 days on 8 January 2031 at 18:26.

Wolf Moon before 5 days

Next Full Moon is the Snow Moon of February 2031 after 24 days on 7 February 2031 at 12:46.

Neap tide

There is low ocean tide on this date. Sun and Moon gravitational forces are not aligned, but meet at big angle, so their combined tidal force is weak.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1875"

Lunar disc appears visually 4% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1875" and ∠1951".

Lunation 383 / 1336

The Moon is 20 days old and navigating from the middle to the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 383 of Meeus index or 1336 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.46 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 59 minutes and it is 19 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°).

Lunation length shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 1 hour and 45 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 24 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠5.3°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠5.3° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠21.6°.

Moon before perigee

8 days since point of apogee on 6 January 2031 at 11:00 in ♊ Gemini the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 7 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 21 January 2031 at 21:41 in ♑ Capricorn.

Distance to Moon 382 324 km

The Moon is 382 324 km (237 565 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 7 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 359 637 km (223 468 mi).

Moon before ascending node

9 days after descending node on 5 January 2031 at 06:37 in ♊ Gemini the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 4 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 19 January 2031 at 08:51 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Moon before southern standstill

8 days since the last northern standstill on 6 January 2031 at 05:22 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠21.889° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 5 days to face maximum declination of ∠-21.824° at the point of next southern standstill on 20 January 2031 at 05:10 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

22 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.

Syzygy in 8 days

In 8 days on 23 January 2031 at 04:31 in ♒ Aquarius 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.

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