Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 99% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 14 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 leaving the last ∠3° of ♊ Gemini tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♋ Cancer later.
Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 7 days on 22 December 2039 at 10:01.
Next Full Moon is the Cold Moon of December 2039 after 1 day on 30 December 2039 at 12:37.
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 9.9% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1951".
The Moon is 14 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 494 of Meeus index or 1447 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 53 minutes and it is 6 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 51 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 18 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 ∠356.9° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠12.4°.
Moon is at apogee at 16:34 about 13 days since last perigee on 15 December 2039 at 20:51 in ♐ Sagittarius the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 14 days until point of next perigee on 13 January 2040 at 10:03 in ♑ Capricorn.
This apogee Moon is 406 355 km (252 497 mi) away from Earth. It is 947 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 354 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.
1 day after ascending node on 28 December 2039 at 08:24 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 11 January 2040 at 10:06 in ♐ Sagittarius.
12 days since the last southern standstill on 16 December 2039 at 19:27 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-25.464° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠25.448° at the point of next northern standstill on 30 December 2039 at 16:29 in ♋ Cancer.
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.
In 1 day on 30 December 2039 at 12:37 in ♋ Cancer 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