Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 92% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 12 days young.
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.
Slide horizontally to discover the moon phase on nearby dates.
Main moon phases of the following lunar cycle.
Moon is passing about ∠6° of ♌ Leo tropical zodiac sector.
Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 4 days on 23 February 2056 at 17:11.
Next Full Moon is the Worm Moon of March 2056 after 2 days on 2 March 2056 at 00:40.
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.
Lunar disc appears visually 2.7% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1885" and ∠1937".
The Moon is 12 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 694 of Meeus index or 1647 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 16 hours and 53 minutes and it is 5 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 4 hours and 9 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 2 hours and 54 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 ∠113.6° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠147°.
7 days since point of apogee on 20 February 2056 at 22:27 in ♈ Aries the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 4 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 3 March 2056 at 19:44 in ♎ Libra.
The Moon is 380 336 km (236 330 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 4 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 361 481 km (224 614 mi).
Moon is in ascending node in ♌ Leo at 01:59 crossing the ecliptic from South to North. Lunar position remains north of if for the upcoming 12 days until Moon's next descending node later on 11 March 2056 at 17:34 in ♑ Capricorn.
1 day since the last northern standstill on 26 February 2056 at 15:50 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠21.253° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 10 days to face maximum declination of ∠-21.325° at the point of next southern standstill on 10 March 2056 at 07:45 in ♑ Capricorn.
At 01:59 in the point ot ascending node the Moon is completing the last draconic month and is entering a new one while the lunar orbit is crossing the ecliptic from South to North.
In 2 days on 2 March 2056 at 00:40 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.
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