First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 62% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 8 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 27 July 2031 at 10:35 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 ∠19° of ♏ Scorpio tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Sturgeon Moon of August 2031 after 5 days on 3 August 2031 at 01:45.
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 1.8% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1924" and ∠1890".
The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 390 of Meeus index or 1343 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 14 hours and 52 minutes and it is 37 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. 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°).
The length of the current synodic month is 2 hours and 8 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 55 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 ∠188.7° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠213.5°.
9 days since point of apogee on 18 July 2031 at 14:28 in ♋ Cancer the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 4 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 2 August 2031 at 06:47 in ♑ Capricorn.
The Moon is 372 623 km (231 537 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 4 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 358 060 km (222 488 mi).
Moon is in ascending node in ♏ Scorpio at 23:54 crossing the ecliptic from South to North. Lunar position remains north of if for the upcoming 13 days until Moon's next descending node later on 10 August 2031 at 14:10 in ♉ Taurus.
12 days since the last northern standstill on 16 July 2031 at 09:01 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠21.045° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 2 days to face maximum declination of ∠-20.951° at the point of next southern standstill on 30 July 2031 at 15:45 in ♐ Sagittarius.
At 23:54 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 5 days on 3 August 2031 at 01:45 in ♒ Aquarius 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