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

Waxing Gibbous in Libra

Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 66% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 9 days young.

Moonrise and moonset

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.

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 ♎ Libra

Moon is leaving the last ∠4° of ♎ Libra tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♏ Scorpio later.

1 day after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 1 day on 28 June 2031 at 00:19.

Buck Moon after 5 days

Next Full Moon is the Buck Moon of July 2031 after 5 days on 4 July 2031 at 19:01.

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 ∠1891"

Lunar disc appears visually 0.2% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1891" and ∠1887".

Lunation 389 / 1342

The Moon is 9 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 389 of Meeus index or 1342 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.64 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 15 hours and 16 minutes and it is 24 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2031. The lengths of the following synodic months are going to decrease with the lunar orbit true anomaly getting closer to the value it has at the point of New Moon at perigee (∠0° or ∠360°).

Lunation length longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 2 hours and 31 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 31 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠165.9°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠165.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠188.7°.

Moon before perigee

8 days since point of apogee on 21 June 2031 at 11:25 in ♋ Cancer the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 5 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 4 July 2031 at 21:14 in ♑ Capricorn.

Distance to Moon 379 135 km

The Moon is 379 135 km (235 584 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 5 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 357 008 km (221 834 mi).

Moon before ascending node

12 days after descending node on 17 June 2031 at 09:18 in ♉ Taurus the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 2 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 1 July 2031 at 18:35 in ♏ Scorpio.

Moon before southern standstill

10 days since the last northern standstill on 19 June 2031 at 02:22 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠21.105° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 3 days to face maximum declination of ∠-21.077° at the point of next southern standstill on 3 July 2031 at 05:15 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

25 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♏ Scorpio the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 5 days

In 5 days on 4 July 2031 at 19:01 in ♑ Capricorn 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.

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