Moon phase today

Today’s phase, illumination and age

The panel at the top shows the Moon as it is right now from the place you choose. The phase name follows the Moon’s angle from the Sun as seen from Earth: new Moon at 0 degrees, first quarter at 90, full Moon at 180 and last quarter (also called third quarter) at 270. The names in between, waxing crescent, waxing gibbous, waning gibbous and waning crescent, cover the days between those four moments. Illumination is the share of the Moon’s disk that is sunlit, and the age counts the days since the last new Moon.

The picture is drawn from a map of the lunar surface made with data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, lit the way the Sun lights it at that moment. Familiar features shift a little from week to week: that is libration, a slight rocking of the Moon as seen from Earth, which over time shows observers a little more than half of its surface.

When the next full Moon rises

The next full Moon is the Hunter's Moon on Monday, October 26 at 4:12 AM UTC. The table lists the next eight principal phases in your time zone, with the Moon’s distance from Earth at each one. A full Moon rises at sunset and sets at sunrise, so it is up all night. A waxing Moon is best seen in the evening, and a waning Moon after midnight and into the morning.

The full Moon names are the traditional North American ones that almanacs made popular: the Wolf Moon in January, Snow Moon in February, Worm Moon in March, Pink Moon in April, Flower Moon in May, Strawberry Moon in June, Buck Moon in July, Sturgeon Moon in August, Corn Moon in September, Hunter’s Moon in October, Beaver Moon in November and Cold Moon in December. The Harvest Moon is the full Moon closest to the September equinox, and the Hunter’s Moon is the one after it. A second full Moon in the same calendar month is called a Blue Moon.

Moonrise, moonset and the Moon in your sky

The chart follows the Moon’s height above your horizon from noon to noon, so the night sits in the middle. The background shows daylight, the three stages of twilight and full darkness. Moonrise and moonset are given for the Moon’s upper edge on a level horizon, with the usual allowance for the bending of light by the atmosphere; hills and buildings can delay a rise or bring a set forward by several minutes.

The Moon rises later every day, by about 50 minutes on average, because it moves roughly 12 degrees east of the Sun each day as it orbits Earth. That is also why some dates have no moonrise or no moonset at all.

A 29.5-day cycle of light

The Moon makes no light of its own. The Sun always lights half of it, and the phases show how much of that lit half faces Earth. One cycle from new Moon to new Moon lasts 29.53 days on average. That is longer than the 27.3 days the Moon takes to circle Earth once relative to the stars, because Earth moves along its own orbit in the meantime and the Moon has to travel a little farther to line up with the Sun again.

Why the Moon looks upside down south of the equator

Observers in the Southern Hemisphere see the Moon turned by about 180 degrees compared with the Northern Hemisphere: a waxing crescent is lit on the left instead of the right. The picture above turns automatically when you choose a place south of the equator.

Common questions