Waxing Gibbous on . The illuminated surface of the moon is 70% and growing larger. The lunar cycle is 9 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 first ∠1° of ♌ Leo tropical zodiac sector.
Previous main lunar phase is the First Quarter before 2 days on 24 March 2056 at 11:17.
Next Full Moon is the Worm Moon of March 2056 after 4 days on 31 March 2056 at 10:25.
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 2.8% narrower than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1869" and ∠1923".
The Moon is 9 days young and navigating from the first to the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 695 of Meeus index or 1648 from Brown series.
The length of this lunation is 29 days, 16 hours and 58 minutes and it is 42 minutes longer than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2056. 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 14 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 2 hours and 49 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 ∠147° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠172.8°.
6 days since point of apogee on 19 March 2056 at 13:34 in ♈ Aries the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next 5 days until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 1 April 2056 at 03:57 in ♎ Libra.
The Moon is 383 488 km (238 288 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next 5 days until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 357 689 km (222 258 mi).
Moon is in ascending node in ♋ Cancer at 07:57 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 7 April 2056 at 18:26 in ♑ Capricorn.
1 day since the last northern standstill on 25 March 2056 at 00:14 in ♋ Cancer when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠21.456° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 11 days to face maximum declination of ∠-21.566° at the point of next southern standstill on 6 April 2056 at 13:41 in ♑ Capricorn.
At 07:57 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 4 days on 31 March 2056 at 10:25 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