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 22 March 2048 at 16:03 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 passing first ∠1° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.
Next Full Moon is the Worm Moon of March 2048 after 7 days on 30 March 2048 at 02:04.
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% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1777" and ∠1925".
The Moon is 7 days young and navigating through the first part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 596 of Meeus index or 1549 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 14 hours and 52 minutes and it is 46 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 2 hours and 8 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 4 hours and 55 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.
The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠100.4° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠135.6°.
1 day since point of apogee on 20 March 2048 at 14:41 in ♊ Gemini the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 9 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 1 April 2048 at 10:10 in ♏ Scorpio.
The Moon is 403 366 km (250 640 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 9 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 363 563 km (225 908 mi).
Moon is in descending node in ♊ Gemini at 14:49 crossing the ecliptic from North to South. Lunar position remains south of if for the upcoming 13 days until Moon's next ascending node later on 4 April 2048 at 14:57 in ♐ Sagittarius.
1 day since the last northern standstill on 21 March 2048 at 12:10 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠24.093° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 12 days to face maximum declination of ∠-23.977° at the point of next southern standstill on 3 April 2048 at 18:56 in ♐ Sagittarius.
13 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♐ Sagittarius the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.
In 7 days on 30 March 2048 at 02:04 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