Last Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 44% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 22 days old.
* The exact date and time of this Last Quarter phase is on 14 February 2031 at 22:50 UTC.
The moon rises at midnight and sets at noon. It is visible to the south in the morning.
Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.
Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.
Moon is passing first ∠4° of ♐ Sagittarius tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Worm Moon of March 2031 after 21 days on 9 March 2031 at 04:30.
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.
Lunar disc appears visually 1% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1963" and ∠1942".
The Moon is 22 days old and navigating through the last 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°.
12 days 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 3 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 19 February 2031 at 00:35 in ♒ Aquarius.
The Moon is 365 217 km (226 935 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 3 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 364 745 km (226 642 mi).
Moon is in ascending node in ♐ Sagittarius at 11:21 crossing the ecliptic from South to North. Lunar position remains north of if for the upcoming 12 days until Moon's next descending node later on 28 February 2031 at 11:02 in ♊ Gemini.
12 days 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 day to face maximum declination of ∠-21.615° at the point of next southern standstill on 16 February 2031 at 13:25 in ♐ Sagittarius.
At 11:21 in the point ot ascending node the Moon is completing the last draconic month and is entering a new one while the lunar orbit is crossing the ecliptic from South to North.
In 6 days on 21 February 2031 at 15:49 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.
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