Last Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 44% and getting smaller. The lunar cycle is 22 days old.
* The exact date and time of this Last Quarter phase is on 5 February 2040 at 22:32 UTC.
The moon rises at midnight and sets at noon. It is visible to the south in the morning.
Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.
Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.
Moon is passing about ∠24° of ♏ Scorpio tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Snow Moon of February 2040 after 21 days on 28 February 2040 at 00:59.
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 0.2% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1949" and ∠1946".
The Moon is 22 days old and navigating through the last 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°.
11 days since point of apogee on 25 January 2040 at 22:42 in ♊ Gemini 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 10 February 2040 at 18:42 in ♑ Capricorn.
The Moon is 367 845 km (228 568 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 4 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 361 749 km (224 780 mi).
12 days after ascending node on 24 January 2040 at 12:28 in ♊ Gemini the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following day until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 7 February 2040 at 15:18 in ♐ Sagittarius.
10 days since the last northern standstill on 26 January 2040 at 22:14 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠25.480° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 3 days to face maximum declination of ∠-25.560° at the point of next southern standstill on 9 February 2040 at 16:13 in ♑ Capricorn.
12 days 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 6 days on 12 February 2040 at 14:24 in ♒ Aquarius 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.
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