Full Moon in Cancer on 31 December 2009 Thursday (2024)

Moon in ♋ Cancer

Moon is passing about ∠6° of ♋ Cancer tropical zodiac sector.

It is Cold Moon

The Full Moon these days is the Cold of December 2009.

Spring tide

There is high Full Moon ocean tide on this date. Combined Sun and Moon gravitational tidal force working on Earth is strong, because of the Sun-Earth-Moon syzygy alignment.

Apparent angular diameter ∠1955"

Lunar disc appears visually 0.2% wider than solar disc. Moon and Sun apparent angular diameters are ∠1955" and ∠1951".

Lunation 123 / 1076

The Moon is 14 days old and navigating through the middle part of the current synodic month. This is lunation 123 of Meeus index or 1076 from Brown series.

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Synodic month length 29.8 days

The length of this lunation is 29 days, 19 hours and 9 minutes and it is 31 minutes shorter than the upcoming lunation's length. This is the year's longest synodic month of 2009. The lengths of the following synodic months are going to increase with the lunar orbit true anomaly getting closer to the value it has at the point of New Moon at apogee (∠180°).

Lunation length longer than mean

The length of the current synodic month is 6 hours and 25 minutes longer than the mean synodic month length. It is 38 minutes shorter compared to 21st century's longest synodic month length.

True anomaly ∠135.6°

The true anomaly of the Moon orbit at the beginning of this lunation cycle is ∠135.6° and at the beginning of the next lunar synodic month the true anomaly is going to be ∠164.3°.

Moon before perigee

10 days since point of apogee on 20 December 2009 at 14:54 in ♒ Aquarius the lunar orbit is getting narrow while the Moon is moving towards the Earth. It will keep this direction over the next day until the Moon reaches the point of next perigee on 1 January 2010 at 20:36 in ♋ Cancer.

Last apogee | Next perigee

Distance to Moon 366 614 km

The Moon is 366 614 km (227 803 mi) away from Earth and getting closer over the next day until the point perigee when Earth-Moon distance is going to be 358 684 km (222 876 mi).

Moon before descending node

12 days after ascending node on 18 December 2009 at 16:41 in ♑ Capricorn the Moon is positioned north of the ecliptic over the following day until the lunar crosses the ecliptic again from North to South in descending node on 1 January 2010 at 12:30 in ♋ Cancer.

Last node | Next node

Moon after northern standstill

1 day since the last northern standstill on 30 December 2009 at 10:09 in ♊ Gemini when the Moon has reached North declination of ∠25.787° the lunar orbit is extending southward over the next 11 days to face maximum declination of ∠-25.796° at the point of next southern standstill on 12 January 2010 at 08:33 in ♐ Sagittarius.

Last standstill | Next standstill

Draconic month

12 days since the beginning of this draconic month in ♑ Capricorn the Moon is navigating from the beginning to the first part of the lunar cycle.

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Sun-Earth-Moon syzygy

The Moon is in a Full Moon geocentric opposition with the Sun and thus forming Sun-Earth-Moon syzygy alignment.

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