First Quarter on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 48% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 7 days young.
* The exact date and time of this First Quarter phase is on 20 March 2040 at 17:59 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 leaving the last ∠2° of ♊ Gemini tropical zodiac sector and will enter ♋ Cancer later.
Next Full Moon is the Worm Moon of March 2040 after 8 days on 28 March 2040 at 15:11.
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 8.4% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1770" and ∠1926".
The Moon is 7 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 497 of Meeus index or 1450 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 12 hours and 14 minutes and it is 1 hour and 14 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 30 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 5 hours and 39 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 ∠53.5° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠86°.
10 days since point of perigee on 9 March 2040 at 12:23 in ♒ Aquarius the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next day until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 21 March 2040 at 11:22 in ♋ Cancer.
The Moon is 404 965 km (251 634 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next day until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 287 km (251 212 mi).
1 day after ascending node on 18 March 2040 at 16:29 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 1 April 2040 at 17:18 in ♏ Scorpio.
12 days since the last southern standstill on 7 March 2040 at 22:59 in ♑ Capricorn when the Moon has reached South declination of ∠-25.776° the lunar orbit is extending northward over the next day to face maximum declination of ∠25.893° at the point of next northern standstill on 21 March 2040 at 12:03 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 8 days on 28 March 2040 at 15:11 in ♎ Libra 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