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

Waxing Gibbous in Cancer

Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 74% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 10 days young.

Moonrise and moonset

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.

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 is entering ♋ Cancer

Moon is passing first ∠2° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.

2 days after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 2 days on 19 February 2040 at 21:33.

Snow Moon after 5 days

Next Full Moon is the Snow Moon of February 2040 after 5 days on 28 February 2040 at 00:59.

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 ∠1768"

Lunar disc appears visually 9.3% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1768" and ∠1940".

Lunation 496 / 1449

The Moon is 10 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 496 of Meeus index or 1449 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.47 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 11 hours and 22 minutes and it is 52 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 22 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 47 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠30.1°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠30.1° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠53.5°.

Moon at apogee

Moon is at apogee at 15:18 about 11 days since last perigee on 10 February 2040 at 18:42 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 9 March 2040 at 12:23 in ♒ Aquarius.

Distance to Moon 404 988 km

This apogee Moon is 404 988 km (251 648 mi) away from Earth. It is 420 km further than the mean apogee distance, but it is still 1 721 km closer than the farthest apogee of 21st century.

Moon after ascending node

1 day after ascending node on 20 February 2040 at 14:18 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 5 March 2040 at 16:03 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Moon before northern standstill

12 days since the last southern standstill on 9 February 2040 at 16:13 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-25.560° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠25.645° at the point of next northern standstill on 23 February 2040 at 04:38 in ♋ Cancer.

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 5 days

In 5 days on 28 February 2040 at 00:59 in ♍ Virgo 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.

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