Moon Phase Explorer

The Moon never changes shape — you are just seeing more or less of the half the Sun is lighting. Drag the date to watch it fill and empty, and the diagram beside it shows exactly where the Moon has to be for that to happen. It opens on tonight.

Full Moon
waxing
100.0%
lit as we see it

Where the Moon is on that date

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The curve is the lit fraction across a whole year — click anywhere on it to jump, or use the slider with ← → for a day at a time. Filled dots are full moons, hollow ones are new.

Readout

—lit fraction
—age of the moon
—cycle, new to new
—angle sun–earth–moon
—distance from earth
—apparent width

Approximate. Phases come from a standard short series for the Sun and Moon built on the 29.53-day synodic cycle — good to a few minutes for the phase times, close enough for planning a walk, not for pointing a telescope. Times are your device's local clock. The drawn disc even shrinks and grows with the real distance.

Coming up