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The Moon takes about 29.5 days to go from one new moon to the next. Along the way it passes through eight named phases: it grows from nothing to a full disc over two weeks, then shrinks back over the next two. From Australia, a growing Moon is lit on the left.
The eight phases, in order
These drawings show the Moon as you see it from Australia and the rest of the Southern Hemisphere. In the Northern Hemisphere each one is the other way round.
- New moonDay 0. Not visible: it’s up in the daytime, lost in the Sun’s glare.
- Waxing crescentDays 1 to 6. Low in the west after sunset.
- First quarterAbout day 7. Half lit. High at sunset, sets around midnight.
- Waxing gibbousDays 8 to 14. Up in the afternoon and most of the night.
- Full moonAbout day 15. Rises at sunset and is up all night.
- Waning gibbousDays 16 to 21. Rises in the evening, still up in the morning.
- Last quarterAbout day 22. Half lit. Rises around midnight.
- Waning crescentDays 23 to 29. Low in the east before sunrise.
Four words do most of the work. Waxing means growing and waning means shrinking. A crescent is less than half lit, and gibbous (say GIB-us, with a hard g) is more than half lit but not full.
The last quarter is also called the third quarter. A “half moon” is either quarter.
Why the Moon has phases
The Moon makes no light of its own. Like the Earth, it’s a ball with one half in sunlight and the other half in the dark, all the time. The phase is simply how much of the sunlit half is turned towards us as the Moon travels around the Earth.
At new moon the Moon is between us and the Sun, so the side facing us is the dark side. A week later it has gone a quarter of the way round: we see it side-on, half lit. That’s why it’s called the first quarter even though half the face is bright. A week after that the Moon is on the far side of the Earth from the Sun and we see the whole lit face: a full moon.
It is not the Earth’s shadow. The Earth’s shadow only touches the Moon during a lunar eclipse.
Why the Moon is “upside down” in Australia
Someone in Sydney and someone in London are standing on opposite sides of a ball, with their heads pointing in very different directions. They see the same Moon in the same phase, but turned around. So:
- In Australia, a waxing Moon is lit on the left and a waning Moon on the right.
- In the Northern Hemisphere it’s the reverse: waxing is lit on the right.
- Near the equator a crescent often lies on its back, like a smile or a boat.
A handy check for Australia is the word COD. A crescent shaped like a C is growing, O is full, and one shaped like a D is shrinking. Northern books teach it backwards, as DOC.
The dark markings on the Moon are turned around too, which is why pictures of the “Man in the Moon” in books from Europe and America never quite match the Moon outside an Australian window.
Moon phase dates
Times are Sydney time (daylight saving time in summer). The phase happens at the same moment everywhere, so for another time zone only the clock time changes.
| New moon | First quarter | Full moon | Last quarter |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | |||
| Mon 9 Nov, 6:02 pm | Tue 17 Nov, 10:47 pm | Wed 25 Nov, 1:53 am | Tue 1 Dec, 5:08 pm |
| Wed 9 Dec, 11:51 am | Thu 17 Dec, 4:42 pm | Thu 24 Dec, 12:28 pm | Thu 31 Dec, 5:59 am |
| 2027 | |||
| Fri 8 Jan, 7:24 am | Sat 16 Jan, 7:34 am | Fri 22 Jan, 11:17 pm | Fri 29 Jan, 9:55 pm |
| Sun 7 Feb, 2:56 am | Sun 14 Feb, 6:58 pm | Sun 21 Feb, 10:23 am | Sun 28 Feb, 4:16 pm |
| Mon 8 Mar, 8:29 pm | Tue 16 Mar, 3:25 am | Mon 22 Mar, 9:43 pm | Tue 30 Mar, 11:53 am |
| Wed 7 Apr, 9:51 am | Wed 14 Apr, 8:56 am | Wed 21 Apr, 8:27 am | Thu 29 Apr, 6:17 am |
| Thu 6 May, 8:58 pm | Thu 13 May, 2:43 pm | Thu 20 May, 8:58 pm | Fri 28 May, 11:57 pm |
| Sat 5 June, 5:40 am | Fri 11 June, 8:56 pm | Sat 19 June, 10:44 am | Sun 27 June, 2:54 pm |
| Sun 4 July, 1:02 pm | Sun 11 July, 4:38 am | Mon 19 July, 1:44 am | Tue 27 July, 2:54 am |
| Mon 2 Aug, 8:05 pm | Mon 9 Aug, 2:54 pm | Tue 17 Aug, 5:28 pm | Wed 25 Aug, 12:27 pm |
| Wed 1 Sept, 3:41 am | Wed 8 Sept, 4:31 am | Thu 16 Sept, 9:03 am | Thu 23 Sept, 8:20 pm |
| Thu 30 Sept, 12:36 pm | Thu 7 Oct, 10:47 pm | Sat 16 Oct, 12:47 am | Sat 23 Oct, 4:29 am |
| Sat 30 Oct, 12:36 am | Sat 6 Nov, 7:00 pm | Sun 14 Nov, 2:25 pm | Sun 21 Nov, 11:48 am |
| Sun 28 Nov, 2:24 pm | Mon 6 Dec, 4:22 pm | Tue 14 Dec, 3:08 am | Mon 20 Dec, 8:10 pm |
| Tue 28 Dec, 7:12 am | Wed 5 Jan 2028, 12:40 pm | Wed 12 Jan 2028, 3:03 pm | Wed 19 Jan 2028, 6:26 am |
We calculate these times ourselves, and checked the method against the times published by the US Naval Observatory: every phase from 2024 to 2030 agrees to within a minute.
The numbers
| New moon to new moon | 29.53 days on average (29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes). Any one cycle can be anywhere from about 29.3 to 29.8 days. |
|---|---|
| One trip around the Earth | 27.32 days (27 days, 7 hours, 43 minutes), measured against the stars. |
| Average distance | 384,400 km. |
| Width | 3,475 km, a bit more than a quarter of the Earth’s. |
| Tilt of its orbit | About 5° from the path the Sun takes across our sky. |
Why two different months? While the Moon goes once around the Earth, the Earth has moved on around the Sun. The Moon needs about two more days to catch up and line up with the Sun again, and it’s that line-up that sets the phase.
Good to know
- We always see the same face. The Moon turns once for every trip around the Earth, so one side always faces us. The other side is the far side, not the dark side: it gets just as much sunlight.
- Earthshine. When the Moon is a thin crescent you can often see the rest of the disc glowing faintly. That’s sunlight bounced off the Earth.
- Eclipses. A lunar eclipse can only happen at full moon and a solar eclipse only at new moon. We don’t get one every month because the Moon’s orbit is tilted, so most months the line-up just misses.
- Tides. The biggest tides (spring tides) come just after new and full moon, when the Sun and Moon pull along the same line. The smallest (neap tides) come just after the quarters.
- Blue moon. Usually means the second full moon in one calendar month. It happens every two or three years.
- Supermoon. A full moon that falls when the Moon is at the near end of its slightly oval orbit. It looks a little bigger and brighter than usual.
- The Moon in the daytime. The Moon is up in daylight about as often as at night. It’s easiest to spot in the afternoon in the week before full moon, and in the morning in the week after.
Common questions
What are the eight phases of the Moon in order?
How long does the Moon take to go through its phases?
Why does the Moon look upside down in Australia?
Is the phase of the Moon caused by the Earth’s shadow?
Why is it called a first quarter when half the Moon is lit?
Is the Moon’s phase the same everywhere in the world?
Sources
- Jean Meeus, Astronomical Algorithms, 2nd edition (Willmann-Bell, 1998), chapters 48 and 49: the method behind the dates and the live panel.
- US Naval Observatory, Astronomical Applications Department, Phases of the Moon: the published times we checked ours against. aa.usno.navy.mil
- NASA, Moon Fact Sheet, for the distance, size and orbit figures. nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov