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

Waxing Gibbous in Virgo

Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 88% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 11 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 in ♍ Virgo

Moon is passing about ∠11° of ♍ Virgo tropical zodiac sector.

4 days after First Quarter

Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 4 days on 6 April 2052 at 09:28.

Pink Moon after 3 days

Next Full Moon is the Pink Moon of April 2052 after 3 days on 14 April 2052 at 02:29.

Neap tide

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.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1834"

Lunar disc appears visually 4.3% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1834" and ∠1914".

Lunation 646 / 1599

The Moon is 11 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 646 of Meeus index or 1599 from Brown series.

Synodic month length 29.37 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 8 hours and 54 minutes and it is 1 hour and 25 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 shorter than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 3 hours and 50 minutes shorter than the mean synodic month length. It is 2 hours and 19 minutes longer compared to 21st century's shortest synodic month length.

Lunar orbit details for

True anomaly ∠335.6°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠335.6° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠352.1°.

Moon before apogee

9 days since point of perigee on 1 April 2052 at 05:25 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 6 days until the Moon reaches the point of next apogee on 16 April 2052 at 17:03 in ♏ Scorpio.

Distance to Moon 390 850 km

The Moon is 390 850 km (242 863 mi) away from Earth and getting further over the next 6 days until the point apogee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 405 976 km (252 262 mi).

Moon before ascending node

10 days after descending node on 31 March 2052 at 00:11 in ♈ Aries the Moon is positioned south of the ecliptic over the following 2 days until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from South to North in ascending node on 13 April 2052 at 05:26 in ♎ Libra.

Moon after northern standstill

5 days since the last northern standstill on 4 April 2052 at 21:04 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠18.325° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 8 days to face maximum declination of ∠-18.346° at the point of next southern standstill on 19 April 2052 at 06:22 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Draconic month

24 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♎ Libra the Moon is navigating from the second to the final part of the lunar cycle.

Syzygy in 3 days

In 3 days on 14 April 2052 at 02:29 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.

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