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

Full Moon in Cancer

Full Moon on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 99%. The lunar cycle is 15 days old.

* The exact date and time of this Full Moon phase is on 26 December 2042 at 17:43 UTC.

Moonrise and moonset

The moon rises at sunset and sets at sunrise. It is visible all night and it is high in the sky around midnight.

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 in ♋ Cancer

Moon is passing about ∠16° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.

It is Cold Moon

The Full Moon these days is the Cold of December 2042.

Spring tide

There is high Full Moon ocean tide on this date. Combined Sun and Moon gravitational tidal force working on Earth is strong, because of the Sun-Earth-Moon syzygy alignment.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1900"

Lunar disc appears visually 2.7% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1900" and ∠1951".

Lunation 531 / 1484

The Moon is 15 days old and navigating through the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 531 of Meeus index or 1484 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.68 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 16 hours and 24 minutes and it is 2 hours and 10 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. The lengths of the following synodic months are going to decrease with the lunar orbit true anomaly getting closer to the value it has at the point of New Moon at perigee (∠0° or ∠360°).

Lunation length longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 3 hours and 40 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 3 hours and 23 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠232°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠232° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠269.3°.

Moon after perigee

3 days since point of perigee on 24 December 2042 at 02:12 in ♉ Taurus the lunar orbit is getting widen while the Moon is moving away from the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 8 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 4 January 2043 at 19:56 in ♎ Libra.

Distance to Moon 377 253 km

The Moon is 377 253 km (234 414 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 8 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 404 558 km (251 381 mi).

Moon after ascending node

6 days after ascending node on 21 December 2042 at 04:46 in ♈ Aries the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following 6 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 3 January 2043 at 07:24 in ♎ Libra.

Moon after northern standstill

1 day since the last northern standstill on 26 December 2042 at 13:20 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠28.289° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 13 days to face maximum declination of ∠-28.311° at the point of next southern standstill on 9 January 2043 at 20:09 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

6 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♈ Aries the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

Sun-Earth-Moon syzygy

The Moon is in a Full Moon geocentric opposition with the Sun and thus forming 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