Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 86% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 11 days young.
The moon rises in the afternoon and sets after midnight to early morning. It is visible to the southeast in early evening and it is up for most of the night.
Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.
Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.
Moon is passing first ∠0° of ♊ Gemini tropical zodiac sector.
Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 4 days on 30 January 2031 at 07:43.
Next Full Moon is the Snow Moon of February 2031 after 4 days on 7 February 2031 at 12:46.
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 9.6% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1947".
The Moon is 11 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 384 of Meeus index or 1337 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 11 hours and 18 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 1 hour and 26 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 43 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 ∠21.6° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠41.9°.
1 day since point of apogee on 2 February 2031 at 23:45 in ♊ Gemini the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 15 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 19 February 2031 at 00:35 in ♒ Aquarius.
The Moon is 405 493 km (251 962 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 15 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 364 745 km (226 642 mi).
2 days after descending node on 1 February 2031 at 09:25 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 15 February 2031 at 11:21 in ♐ Sagittarius.
1 day since the last northern standstill on 2 February 2031 at 12:52 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠21.745° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 13 days to face maximum declination of ∠-21.615° at the point of next southern standstill on 16 February 2031 at 13:25 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 4 days on 7 February 2031 at 12:46 in ♌ Leo 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