Moon Phase Today

The Moon in the window is drawn in its real phase for the current moment. Pick any other date and it redraws for that day. Under the window you get:

• today's phase name;
• the percentage of the Moon that is lit;
• the Moon's age in days since the last new moon;
• the zodiac sign the Moon is in today;
• the date and local time of the next new moon, first quarter, full moon and last quarter;
• the full moons for the rest of the year, each with its traditional name;
• the next lunar and solar eclipses.

All times appear in your own time zone, taken from your browser. The page is free, and you don't need an account.

The Moon takes about 29.5 days to go from one new moon to the next. Astronomers and almanacs split that cycle into eight named phases.

• New moon: the Moon sits between Earth and the Sun, so the side facing us is dark and the Moon is essentially invisible.
• Waxing crescent: a thin sliver appears on the evening side of the sky and grows a little each night.
• First quarter: half the visible disk is lit, and the Moon is high in the sky at sunset.
• Waxing gibbous: more than half is lit and still growing toward full.
• Full moon: the whole disk is lit. It rises around sunset and stays up most of the night.
• Waning gibbous: the lit part starts to shrink. The Moon rises later each evening.
• Last quarter: half is lit again, on the opposite side from first quarter. It's visible in the late night and morning.
• Waning crescent: a thin sliver is left in the pre-dawn sky before the cycle starts over.

"Waxing" means the lit part is growing. "Waning" means it is shrinking. "Gibbous" means more than half but less than full.

Check the illumination number in the results. At a full moon it reads close to 100%. The exact full moon is a single moment, when the Moon is directly opposite the Sun. To the eye, the Moon looks full for about a day on either side of that moment, so the night before and the night after can both pass for a full moon.

If tonight's number is in the high 90s, step outside. If it's lower, look at the phase name. Waxing means the Moon is still heading toward full, and waning means the full moon has already passed.

Many of these names come from Native American, colonial American and European traditions, and they describe the season more than the Moon. Different sources use different names, so treat this as the most common set.

• Wolf Moon: January, named for winter wolves howling in the cold.
• Snow Moon: February, usually the heaviest snow of the season.
• Worm Moon: March, when the ground softens and earthworms return.
• Pink Moon: April, named for early spring wildflowers, not the color of the Moon.
• Flower Moon: May, when blossoms are everywhere.
• Strawberry Moon: June, the short strawberry harvest.
• Buck Moon: July, when male deer grow new antlers.
• Sturgeon Moon: August, when sturgeon were easiest to catch in the Great Lakes.
• Corn Moon or Harvest Moon: September, the main crop harvest.
• Hunter's Moon: October, the season for hunting before winter.
• Beaver Moon: November, when beavers build their lodges and trappers set their traps.
• Cold Moon: December, the start of the long winter nights.

The Harvest Moon is the full moon nearest the September equinox. That means it usually falls in September but sometimes lands in early October, in which case the Hunter's Moon takes the later slot. A Blue Moon is most often the second full moon in a single calendar month, which happens roughly every two to three years.

In astrology, the Moon's cycle is often used as a loose calendar for your own habits. A new moon is a common time to set intentions and start small things. A full moon is when things come to a head, and people use it to look at what has built up and what they might let go of. The quarter phases are treated as checkpoints.

None of this is proven, and the Moon's phase doesn't predict events. It's meant for entertainment and reflection. The tool also shows the zodiac sign the Moon is in today, which astrologers use for the mood of the day. To find the sign the Moon was in when you were born, use the moon sign calculator.

A lunar eclipse happens at a full moon when Earth passes directly between the Sun and the Moon and its shadow falls on the Moon. Anyone on the night side of Earth can see it. A solar eclipse happens at a new moon, when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun. The Moon's shadow is small, so only people in a narrow path see a total eclipse, and a larger area sees a partial one.

Most months there's no eclipse, because the Moon's orbit is tilted by about five degrees to Earth's path around the Sun. The Sun, Earth and Moon only line up closely enough a few times a year. The tool lists the next lunar and solar eclipses with their local times.

You may see a full moon or new moon time that's a few minutes off from another site. Usually it comes down to definitions and rounding. Some sources round to the nearest minute and others truncate. Some show Universal Time or the time in one city, while this page converts to your own time zone. And "full moon" can mean the moment of exact opposition in ecliptic longitude, or the moment of greatest illumination, which can differ by a short time.

This page computes the phase and illumination for the exact moment using astronomy-engine, an open-source astronomy library built on the same kind of ephemeris data used by NASA. The Moon's age is counted from the most recent new moon.