Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 87% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 11 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 passing about ∠23° of ♊ Gemini tropical zodiac sector.
Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 4 days on 21 January 2040 at 02:21.
Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon of January 2040 after 3 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 9.7% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1769" and ∠1949".
The Moon is 11 days young and navigating from the first to the middle 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°.
Moon is at apogee at 22:42 about 12 days since last perigee on 13 January 2040 at 10:03 in ♑ Capricorn the lunar orbit is going to narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth over the upcoming 16 days until point of next perigee on 10 February 2040 at 18:42 in ♑ Capricorn.
This apogee Moon is 405 896 km (252 212 mi) away from Earth. It is 488 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 813 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.
1 day after ascending node on 24 January 2040 at 12:28 in ♊ Gemini the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 13 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 7 February 2040 at 15:18 in ♐ Sagittarius.
12 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 day to face maximum declination of ∠25.480° at the point of next northern standstill on 26 January 2040 at 22:14 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 3 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