Lunar phase

A lunar phase or Moon phase is the apparent shape of the Moon's directly sunlit portion as viewed
from the Earth. Because the Moon is tidally locked with the Earth, the same hemisphere is always
facing the Earth. In common usage, the four major phases are the new moon, the first quarter, the
full moon and the last quarter; the four minor phases are waxing crescent, waxing gibbous, waning
gibbous, and waning crescent. A lunar month is the time between successive recurrences of the
same phase: due to the eccentricity of the Moon's orbit, this duration is not perfectly constant but
averages about 29.5 days.

4:55

The lunar phases and librations in 2024 as viewed

from the Northern Hemisphere at hourly intervals,
with titles and supplemental graphics

4:55

The lunar phases and librations in 2024 as viewed

from the Southern Hemisphere at hourly intervals,
with titles and supplemental graphics

A full moon sets behind San Gorgonio

Mountain in California on a midsummer's
morning.
The appearance of the Moon (its phase) gradually changes over a lunar month as the relative orbital
positions of the Moon around Earth, and Earth around the Sun, shift. The visible side of the Moon is
sunlit to varying extents, depending on the position of the Moon in its orbit, with the sunlit portion
varying from 0% (at new moon) to nearly 100% (at full moon).[1]

Phases of the Moon

The phases of the Moon as viewed

looking southward from the Northern
Hemisphere. Each phase would be
rotated 180° if seen looking
northward from the Southern
Hemisphere. The upper part of the
diagram is not to scale, as the Moon,
the Earth, and the Moon's orbit are all
much smaller relative to the Earth's
orbit than shown here.

There are four principal (primary, or major) lunar phases: the new moon, first quarter, full moon, and
last quarter (also known as third or final quarter), when the Moon's ecliptic longitude is at an angle
to the Sun (as viewed from the center of the Earth) of 0°, 90°, 180°, and 270° respectively.[2][a] Each
of these phases appears at slightly different times at different locations on Earth, and tabulated
times are therefore always geocentric (calculated for the Earth's center).

Between the principal phases are intermediate phases, during which the apparent shape of the
illuminated Moon is either crescent or gibbous. On average, the intermediate phases last one-
quarter of a synodic month, or 7.38 days.[b]

The term waxing is used for an intermediate phase when the Moon's apparent shape is thickening,
from new to a full moon; and waning when the shape is thinning. The duration from full moon to new
moon (or new moon to full moon) varies from approximately 13 days 221⁄2 hours to about
15 days 141⁄2 hours.

Due to lunar motion relative to the meridian and the ecliptic, in Earth's northern hemisphere:

A new moon appears highest at the summer solstice and lowest at the winter solstice.

A first-quarter moon appears highest at the spring equinox and lowest at the autumn equinox.

A full moon appears highest at the winter solstice and lowest at the summer solstice.
 A last-quarter moon appears highest at the autumn equinox and lowest at the spring equinox.

Non-Western cultures may use a different number of lunar phases; for example, traditional Hawaiian
culture has a total of 30 phases (one per day).[3]

Lunar libration

Animation showing progression of the

Moon's phases.

As seen from Earth, the Moon's eccentric orbit makes it both slightly change its apparent size, and
to be seen from slightly different angles. The effect is subtle to the naked eye, from night to night,
yet somewhat obvious in time-lapse photography.

Lunar libration causes part of the back side of the Moon to be visible to a terrestrial observer some
of the time. Because of this, around 59% of the Moon's surface has been imaged from the ground.
Principal and intermediate phases of the Moon

Illuminated portion Culmination Illustration Photograph

Average Average
Moon time (view from
Northern Southern Visibility moonrise moonset Northern Southern
phase (highest Northern
Hemisphere Hemisphere time[c] time[c] Hemisphere Hemisphere Hemisphere)
point)

Invisible
(too close
Disc completely in Sun's to Sun)
New
shadow (lit by earthshine except 06:00 12:00 18:00
Moon
only) during a
solar
eclipse

Late
Right side, Left side,
Waxing morning
(0%–50%) (0%–50%) 09:00 15:00 21:00
crescent to post-
lit disc lit disc
dusk

Right side, Left side, Afternoon

First
50.1% lit 50.1% lit and early 12:00 18:00 00:00
quarter
disc disc night

Right side, Left side, Late

Waxing (50%– (50%– afternoon
15:00 21:00 03:00
gibbous 100%) lit 100%) lit and most
disc disc of night

Sunset to
Full
100% illuminated disc sunrise 18:00 00:00 06:00
Moon
(all night)

Most of
Left side, Right side,
Waning night and
(100%– (100%– 21:00 03:00 09:00
gibbous early
50%) lit disc 50%) lit disc
morning

Left side, Right side, Late night

Last
50.1% lit 50.1% lit and 00:00 06:00 12:00
quarter
disc disc morning

Left side, Right side, Pre-dawn

Waning
(50%–0%) (50%–0%) to early 03:00 09:00 15:00
crescent
lit disc lit disc afternoon
 This video provides an illustration of
how the Moon passes through its
phases – a product of its orbit, which
allows different parts of its surface to
be illuminated by the Sun over the
course of a month. The camera is
locked to the Moon as Earth rapidly
rotates in the foreground.

Waxing and waning

Diagram of the Moon's phases: The

Earth is at the center of the diagram
and the Moon is shown orbiting.

When the Sun and Moon are aligned on the same side of the Earth (conjunct), the Moon is "new",
and the side of the Moon facing Earth is not illuminated by the Sun. As the Moon waxes (the amount
of illuminated surface as seen from Earth increases), the lunar phases progress through the new
moon, crescent moon, first-quarter moon, gibbous moon, and full moon phases. The Moon then
wanes as it passes through the gibbous moon, third-quarter moon, and crescent moon phases,
before returning back to new moon.

The terms old moon and new moon are not interchangeable. The "old moon" is a waning sliver
(which eventually becomes undetectable to the naked eye) until the moment it aligns with the Sun
and begins to wax, at which point it becomes new again.[4] Half moon is often used to mean the
first- and third-quarter moons, while the term quarter refers to the extent of the Moon's cycle around
the Earth, not its shape.
When an illuminated hemisphere is viewed from a certain angle, the portion of the illuminated area
that is visible will have a two-dimensional shape as defined by the intersection of an ellipse and
circle (in which the ellipse's major axis coincides with the circle's diameter). If the half-ellipse is
convex with respect to the half-circle, then the shape will be gibbous (bulging outwards),[5] whereas
if the half-ellipse is concave with respect to the half-circle, then the shape will be a crescent. When a
crescent moon occurs, the phenomenon of earthshine may be apparent, where the night side of the
Moon dimly reflects indirect sunlight reflected from Earth.[6]

Orientation by latitude

The observed orientation of the Moon

at different phases from different
latitudes on Earth (the different
orientation displayed between the
phases at each latitude show merely
the extremes of orientation due to
libration)

In the Northern Hemisphere, if the left side of the Moon is dark, then the bright part is thickening,
and the Moon is described as waxing (shifting toward full moon). If the right side of the Moon is
dark, then the bright part is thinning, and the Moon is described as waning (past full and shifting
toward new moon). Assuming that the viewer is in the Northern Hemisphere, the right side of the
Moon is the part that is always waxing. (That is, if the right side is dark, the Moon is becoming
darker; if the right side is lit, the Moon is getting brighter.)

In the Southern Hemisphere, the Moon is observed from a perspective inverted, or rotated 180°, to
that of the Northern and to all of the images in this article, so that the opposite sides appear to wax
or wane.

Closer to the Equator, the lunar terminator will appear horizontal during the morning and evening.
Since the above descriptions of the lunar phases only apply at middle or high latitudes, observers
moving towards the tropics from northern or southern latitudes will see the Moon rotated anti-
clockwise or clockwise with respect to the images in this article.
The lunar crescent can open upward or downward, with the "horns" of the crescent pointing up or
down, respectively. When the Sun appears above the Moon in the sky, the crescent opens
downward; when the Moon is above the Sun, the crescent opens upward. The crescent Moon is
most clearly and brightly visible when the Sun is below the horizon, which implies that the Moon
must be above the Sun, and the crescent must open upward. This is therefore the orientation in
which the crescent Moon is most often seen from the tropics. The waxing and waning crescents
look very similar. The waxing crescent appears in the western sky in the evening, and the waning
crescent in the eastern sky in the morning.

Earthshine

An overexposed photograph of a crescent

Moon reveals earthshine and stars.

When the Moon (seen from Earth) is a thin crescent, Earth (as viewed from the Moon) is almost fully
lit by the Sun. Often, the dark side of the Moon is dimly illuminated by indirect sunlight reflected
from Earth, but is bright enough to be easily visible from Earth. This phenomenon is called
earthshine, sometimes picturesquely described as "the old moon in the new moon's arms" or "the
new moon in the old moon's arms".

Timekeeping

Archaeologists have reconstructed methods of timekeeping that go back to prehistoric times, at

least as old as the Neolithic. The natural units for timekeeping used by most historical societies are
the day, the solar year and the lunation. The first crescent of the new moon provides a clear and
regular marker in time and pure lunar calendars (such as the Islamic Hijri calendar) rely completely
on this metric. The fact, however, that a year of twelve lunar months is ten or eleven days shorter
than the solar year means that a lunar calendar drifts out of step with the seasons. Lunisolar
calendars resolve this issue with a year of thirteen lunar months every few years, or by restarting the
count at the first new (or full) moon after the winter solstice. The Sumerian calendar is the first
recorded to have used the former method; Chinese calendar uses the latter, despite delaying its
start until the second or even third new moon after the solstice. The Hindu calendar, also a lunisolar
calendar, further divides the month into two fourteen day periods that mark the waxing moon and
the waning moon.

The ancient Roman calendar was broadly a lunisolar one; on the decree of Julius Caesar in the first
century BCE, Rome changed to a solar calendar of twelve months, each of a fixed number of days
except in a leap year. This, the Julian calendar (slightly revised in 1582 to correct the leap year rule),
is the basis for the Gregorian calendar that is almost exclusively the civil calendar in use worldwide
today.

Calculating phase

A crescent Moon over Kingman,

Arizona

Each of the four intermediate phases lasts approximately seven days (7.38 days on average), but
varies ±11.25% due to lunar apogee and perigee.

The number of days counted from the time of the new moon is the Moon's "age". Each complete
cycle of phases is called a "lunation".[7]

The approximate age of the Moon, and hence the approximate phase, can be calculated for any date
by calculating the number of days since a known new moon (such as 1 January 1900 or 11 August
1999) and reducing this modulo 29.53059 days (the mean length of a synodic month).[8][d] The
difference between two dates can be calculated by subtracting the Julian day number of one from
that of the other, or there are simpler formulae giving (for instance) the number of days since 31
December 1899. However, this calculation assumes a perfectly circular orbit and makes no
allowance for the time of day at which the new moon occurred and therefore may be incorrect by
several hours. (It also becomes less accurate the larger the difference between the required date
and the reference date.) It is accurate enough to use in a novelty clock application showing lunar
phase, but specialist usage taking account of lunar apogee and perigee requires a more elaborate
calculation. Also, due to lunar libration it is not uncommon to see up to 101% of the full moon or
even up to 5% of the lunar backside.

Effect of parallax

The Earth subtends an angle of about two degrees when seen from the Moon. This means that an
observer on Earth who sees the Moon when it is close to the eastern horizon sees it from an angle
that is about 2 degrees different from the line of sight of an observer who sees the Moon on the
western horizon. The Moon moves about 12 degrees around its orbit per day, so, if these observers
were stationary, they would see the phases of the Moon at times that differ by about one-sixth of a
day, or 4 hours. But in reality, the observers are on the surface of the rotating Earth, so someone
who sees the Moon on the eastern horizon at one moment sees it on the western horizon about 12
hours later. This adds an oscillation to the apparent progression of the lunar phases. They appear to
occur more slowly when the Moon is high in the sky than when it is below the horizon. The Moon
appears to move jerkily, and the phases do the same. The amplitude of this oscillation is never more
than about four hours, which is a small fraction of a month. It does not have any obvious effect on
the appearance of the Moon. It does however affect accurate calculations of the times of lunar
phases.

Misconceptions

Orbital period

It can be confusing that the Moon's orbital sidereal period is 27.3 days while the phases complete a
cycle once every 29.5 days (synodic period). This is due to the Earth's orbit around the Sun. The
Moon orbits the Earth 13.4 times a year, but only passes between the Earth and Sun 12.4 times.
Eclipses

As the Earth revolves around the Sun,

approximate axial parallelism of the
Moon's orbital plane (tilted five
degrees to the Earth's orbital plane)
results in the revolution of the lunar
nodes relative to the Earth. This
causes an eclipse season
approximately every six months, in
which a solar eclipse can occur at the
new moon phase and a lunar eclipse
can occur at the full moon phase.

4:52

The lunar phase depends on the

Moon's position in orbit around the
Earth and the Earth's position in orbit
around the Sun. This animation (not to
scale) looks down on Earth from the
north pole of the ecliptic.

It might be expected that once every month, when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun
during a new moon, its shadow would fall on Earth causing a solar eclipse, but this does not happen
every month. Nor is it true that during every full moon, the Earth's shadow falls on the Moon, causing
a lunar eclipse. Solar and lunar eclipses are not observed every month because the plane of the
Moon's orbit around the Earth is tilted by about 5° with respect to the plane of Earth's orbit around
the Sun (the plane of the ecliptic). Thus, when new and full moons occur, the Moon usually lies to
the north or south of a direct line through the Earth and Sun. Although an eclipse can only occur
when the Moon is either new (solar) or full (lunar), it must also be positioned very near the
intersection of Earth's orbital plane about the Sun and the Moon's orbital plane about the Earth (that
is, at one of its nodes). This happens about twice per year, and so there are between four and seven
eclipses in a calendar year. Most of these eclipses are partial; total eclipses of the Moon or Sun are
less frequent.

Mechanism

The phases are not caused by the Earth's shadow falling on the moon, as some people believe.[10][11]

See also

Blue moon – Metaphor for a rare event, or lunar calendrical term

Earth phase – Phases of the Earth as seen from the Moon

Lunar effect – Unproven proposal of influence of lunar cycle on terrestrial creatures

Lunar month – Time between successive new moons. (Also known as a "lunation".)

Lunar observation – Methods and instruments used to observe the Moon

Planetary phase – Part of planet seen to reflect sunlight

Planetshine – Illumination by reflected sunlight from a planet

Tide – Rise and fall of the sea level under astronomical gravitational influences

Week – Time unit equal to seven days

Month – Unit of time about as long the orbital period of the Moon

Parmenides – 5th-century BC Greek philosopher, who tried to explain lunar phases

Footnotes

a. The quarter phases happen when the observer–Moon–Sun angle is 90°, also known as
quadrature. This is not the same as a right angle, but the difference is very slight. /

b. Their durations vary slightly because the Moon's orbit is somewhat elliptical, so its orbital
speed is not constant.

c. As with sunrise and sunset, there are seasonal variations in the time of moonrise and
moonset.
 d. Lunar months vary in length about the mean by up to seven hours in any given year. In 2001,
the synodic months varied from 29d 19h 14m in January to 29d 07h 11m in July.[9]

References

Citations

1. "Is the 'full moon' merely a fallacy?" (https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna4402294) . NBC

News. 28 February 2004. Retrieved 2023-05-30.

2. Seidelmann 1992, p. 478.

3. "Hawaiian Moon Names" (https://web.archive.org/web/20140102085746/http://www.imiloaha

waii.org/57) . Imiloa, Hilo Attractions. Archived from the original (http://www.imiloahawaii.org/
57/) on 2014-01-02. Retrieved 2013-07-08.

4. "Free Astronomy Lesson 7 - The Phases of the Moon" (http://www.synapses.co.uk/astro/moon

2.html) . Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20230414073024/http://www.synapses.co.u
k/astro/moon2.html) from the original on 2023-04-14. Retrieved 2015-12-28.

5. "Gibbous Definition & Meaning" (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/gibbous) .

Dictionary.com. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20230421145830/https://www.dictiona
ry.com/browse/gibbous) from the original on 2023-04-21. "Origin of gibbous: 1350–1400;
Middle English <Latin gibbōsus humped, equivalent to gibb(a) hump + -ōsus-ous"

6. Asmelash & Allan 2019.

7. "Phases of the Moon and Percent of the Moon Illuminated" (https://web.archive.org/web/2018

0206063503/http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/moon_phases.php) . aa.usno.navy.mil.
Archived from the original (http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/moon_phases.php) on 2018-02-
06. Retrieved 2018-02-12.

8. Seidelmann 1992, p. 577.

9. "Length of the Synodic Month: 2001 to 2100" (http://astropixels.com/ephemeris/moon/synodi

cmonth2001.html) . astropixels.com. 8 November 2019.

10. Musgrave, Ian; Weule, Genelle (January 29, 2018). "A beginner's guide to the Moon" (https://ww
w.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-01-24/beginners-guide-to-the-moon/9320770) . Australian
Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved June 29, 2024.