First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 54% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 8 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 21 January 2040 at 02:21 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 ∠6° of ♉ Taurus tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2040 after 7 days on 29 January 2040 at 07:54.
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 7.1% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1815" and ∠1950".
The Moon is 8 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 495 of Meeus index or 1448 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 10 hours and 59 minutes and it is 23 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's shortest synodic month of 2040. 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 45 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 24 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 ∠12.4° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠30.1°.
8 days since point of perigee on 13 January 2040 at 10:03 in ♑ Capricorn the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 4 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 25 January 2040 at 22:42 in ♊ Gemini.
The Moon is 394 841 km (245 343 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 4 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 405 896 km (252 212 mi).
10 days after descending node on 11 January 2040 at 10:06 in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 3 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 24 January 2040 at 12:28 in ♊ Gemini.
8 days since the last southern standstill on 13 January 2040 at 06:43 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-25.460° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next 5 days to face maximum declination of ∠25.480° at the point of next northern standstill on 26 January 2040 at 22:14 in ♋ Cancer.
24 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♊ Gemini the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.
In 7 days on 29 January 2040 at 07:54 in ♌ Leo 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