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

Waning Gibbous in Cancer

Waning Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 97% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 16 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 ♋ Cancer

Moon is passing about ∠11° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.

1 day after Full Moon

Previous main lunar phase is the Full Moon before 1 day on 11 December 2038 at 17:30.

Cold Moon before 1 day

Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2039 after 27 days on 10 January 2039 at 11:45.

Moderate tide

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.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1808"

Lunar disc appears visually 7.5% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1808" and ∠1949".

Lunation 481 / 1434

The Moon is 16 days old and navigating from the middle to the last part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 481 of Meeus index or 1434 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.47 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 11 hours and 15 minutes and it is 1 hour and 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 29 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 40 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠10.8°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠10.8° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠28.2°.

Moon after apogee

4 days since point of apogee on 8 December 2038 at 13:35 in ♉ Taurus the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 10 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 24 December 2038 at 08:23 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Distance to Moon 396 459 km

The Moon is 396 459 km (246 348 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 10 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 361 283 km (224 491 mi).

Moon after ascending node

1 day after ascending node on 12 December 2038 at 16:05 in ♊ Gemini the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 12 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 25 December 2038 at 19:56 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Moon at northern standstill

At 13:26 the Moon is meeting its standstill point to reach North declination of ∠23.887°. This is the year's northernmost lunar standstill of 2038. Over the upcoming 13 days the lunar orbit is going to tilt southward to face maximum declination of ∠-23.882° at the point of next southern standstill in ♑ Capricorn on 26 December 2038 at 13:42.

Draconic month

1 day since the beginning of this draconic month in ♊ Gemini the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 12 days

In 12 days on 26 December 2038 at 01:02 in ♑ Capricorn 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