Our Solar System

Moon phase today

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Waxing gibbous Moon, 67% lit, 20 October 2026

Waxing gibbous

67% lit9.8 days old396,921 km away (246,635 miles)

Tuesday 20 October 2026, 11:09 UTC

From one new Moon to the next. Arrow keys move a day, Page Up and Page Down jump to the next main phase.

The next full Moon, the Hunter's Moon, is on Monday 26 October 2026, 04:11 UTC.

Drawn north up, as the Moon looks from the Northern Hemisphere. From the Southern Hemisphere it is the other way up.

The next four phases

  • Full Moon: Hunter's Moon Mon 26 Oct 2026 04:11 UTC
  • Last quarter Sun 1 Nov 2026 20:28 UTC
  • New Moon Mon 9 Nov 2026 07:02 UTC
  • First quarter Tue 17 Nov 2026 11:48 UTC

To the nearest minute. We checked our times against the US Naval Observatory's for every phase from 2026 to 2028, and they agree to within a minute and a half. Next new Moon: 9 November. The Moon's distance today.

Is the next full Moon a supermoon?

No. The full Moon of 26 October 2026 is close to being a supermoon: it is 368,872 km from Earth, 88.9% of the way from apogee (404,642 km on 16 October) to perigee (364,409 km on 28 October), and Fred Espenak's test needs 90% or more.

  1. 26 October 2026, the Hunter's Moon: 368,872 km from Earth, 88.9% of the way from apogee to perigee
  2. 24 November 2026, the Beaver Moon: 360,767 km from Earth, 96.9% of the way from apogee to perigee, a supermoon
  3. 24 December 2026, the Cold Moon: 356,740 km from Earth, 99.8% of the way from apogee to perigee, a supermoon
  4. 22 January 2027, the Wolf Moon: 357,644 km from Earth, 99.3% of the way from apogee to perigee, a supermoon
  5. 20 February 2027, the Snow Moon: 363,306 km from Earth, 94.8% of the way from apogee to perigee, a supermoon
  6. 22 March 2027, the Worm Moon: 372,525 km from Earth, 83.9% of the way from apogee to perigee
  7. 20 April 2027, the Pink Moon: 383,426 km from Earth, 60.7% of the way from apogee to perigee
  8. 20 May 2027, the Flower Moon: 393,901 km from Earth, 28.6% of the way from apogee to perigee
  9. 19 June 2027, the Strawberry Moon: 401,951 km from Earth, 8.5% of the way from apogee to perigee
  10. 18 July 2027, the Buck Moon: 405,973 km from Earth, 0.5% of the way from apogee to perigee
  11. 17 August 2027, the Sturgeon Moon: 405,078 km from Earth, 2.1% of the way from apogee to perigee
  12. 15 September 2027, the Harvest Moon: 399,356 km from Earth, 14.4% of the way from apogee to perigee
  13. 15 October 2027, the Hunter's Moon: 389,937 km from Earth, 40.7% of the way from apogee to perigee
How close each full Moon of the next year comes to the Earth, as a share of the way from the far point of its orbit (apogee, 0%) to the near point (perigee, 100%). A full Moon at 90% or more is a supermoon.
How a supermoon is decided

"Supermoon" is not an official astronomical term. NASA says it is typically used for a full Moon that comes within at least 90 percent of perigee, the nearest point of the Moon's orbit, and that at its closest the full Moon can look up to 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than the faintest Moon of the year, when it is farthest from Earth. The 90% comes from Richard Nolle, the astrologer who coined the word. Fred Espenak's tables measure each full Moon against the apogee and perigee either side of it, and so do we. Our list agrees with his for every full Moon from 2026 to 2028.

Supermoons coming up:

The Moon in October 2026

Each day shows the Moon at the middle of the day, as it looks from the Northern Hemisphere; a day with one of the four main phases gives its time. Times in UTC.
MonTueWedThuFriSatSun
1 October: Waning gibbous, 73% lit2 October: Waning gibbous, 62% lit3 October: Last quarter at 13:25, 51% lit4 October: Waning crescent, 39% lit
5 October: Waning crescent, 29% lit6 October: Waning crescent, 19% lit7 October: Waning crescent, 11% lit8 October: Waning crescent, 5% lit9 October: Waning crescent, 2% lit10 October: New Moon at 15:50, 0% lit11 October: Waxing crescent, 1% lit
12 October: Waxing crescent, 4% lit13 October: Waxing crescent, 8% lit14 October: Waxing crescent, 14% lit15 October: Waxing crescent, 22% lit16 October: Waxing crescent, 30% lit17 October: Waxing crescent, 39% lit18 October: First quarter at 16:12, 48% lit
19 October: Waxing gibbous, 58% lit20 October: Waxing gibbous, 67% lit21 October: Waxing gibbous, 76% lit22 October: Waxing gibbous, 84% lit23 October: Waxing gibbous, 91% lit24 October: Waxing gibbous, 96% lit25 October: Waxing gibbous, 99% lit
26 October: Full Moon at 04:11, 100% lit27 October: Waning gibbous, 97% lit28 October: Waning gibbous, 92% lit29 October: Waning gibbous, 85% lit30 October: Waning gibbous, 76% lit31 October: Waning gibbous, 65% lit

Tonight's Moon in 3D

The Moon drawn by our 3D viewer, seen from the Earth's side and lit by the Sun as it is right now, so the globe, with its seas and craters, shows tonight's phase. Press play to load it here, or open the full viewer to fly round it.

The Moon, rendered by the Our Solar System viewer

See tonight's Moon from your own town in the online planetarium: where it stands in your sky, and when it rises and sets.

Why the Moon has phases

The Moon is always half lit by the Sun. As it goes round the Earth we see more or less of that lit half, and the cycle from one new Moon to the next takes 29.5 days on average.

The four main phases are moments. The US Naval Observatory puts new Moon, first quarter, full Moon and last quarter at the instants the Moon is 0, 90, 180 and 270 degrees east of the Sun along the sky. Between them the Moon is a crescent, less than half lit, or gibbous, more than half lit: waxing while the lit part grows and waning while it shrinks. This page names each main phase for the day around its moment.

The phase is the same for everyone on Earth at the same moment. Your clock changes only the time you read it at, and sometimes the date, so every time here is given in UTC and in your own time zone.

From the Southern Hemisphere the Moon appears the other way up, so the lit side is on the left while it waxes. The switch under the Moon turns it round.

The free lesson Phases of the Moon shows it in 3D, with the Sun, the Earth and the Moon to move round.

Moon phase calendars

A calendar for every month from January 2026 to October 2028, each day with its Moon and the main phases to the minute.

The next blue moon is on 20 May 2027, the third full Moon in a season of four.

Questions

What phase is the Moon today?

On 20 October 2026 the Moon is waxing gibbous, 67% lit and 9.8 days old. The phase at the top of this page is worked out live in your browser, so it is right whenever you read it.

When is the next full Moon?

Monday 26 October 2026 at 04:11 UTC, the Hunter's Moon. It is not a supermoon. The full Moon calendar lists every full Moon of the year with its name.

When is the next new Moon?

Monday 9 November 2026 at 07:02 UTC. At new Moon the lit half of the Moon faces away from the Earth, so there is nothing of it to see.

Is the Moon waxing or waning?

On 20 October 2026 it is waxing: the lit part grows each night until the full Moon. The US Naval Observatory calls the Moon waxing while the lit fraction increases and waning while it decreases.

What is the Moon's age?

The number of days since the last new Moon, as the US Naval Observatory defines it. It runs from 0 at new Moon to about 29.5 just before the next, so a full Moon is about 15 days old.

Is the Moon's phase the same everywhere on Earth?

Yes. The phase and the percent lit are the same from anywhere at the same moment, and each main phase happens at one instant for everyone. Only the clock time and sometimes the date differ, which is why this page gives every time in UTC and in your own zone. From the Southern Hemisphere the Moon looks the other way up, so the lit side is on the left while it waxes.

What is a supermoon?

A full Moon close to perigee, the nearest point of the Moon's orbit. NASA says the term is not an official astronomical one and is typically used for a full Moon within at least 90 percent of perigee. We use Fred Espenak's test: the full Moon's distance must be 90% or more of the way from the apogee to the perigee either side of it.

Why does the Moon's face tilt and rock?

The Moon always keeps the same face to us, but not exactly the same face. Because of the tilt and shape of its orbit we see it from slightly different angles through the month, so it seems to wobble: that is libration. It also seems to roll back and forth, as its north pole turns against celestial north. The Moon on this page is turned the way it is at that moment, to within a hundredth of a degree of JPL's Horizons system on the dates we test.

More about the Moon

Sources

  1. US Naval Observatory: Phases of the Moon. Our times are checked against USNO's for every phase from 2026 to 2028 and agree to within a minute and a half
  2. US Naval Observatory: Phases of the Moon and percent of the Moon illuminated (how the phases, the percent lit and the Moon's age are defined)
  3. NASA Science: Moon phases
  4. NASA Science: Supermoons
  5. Fred Espenak, AstroPixels: Full Moon at Perigee (full supermoons), 2001 to 2100, and the test for one
  6. EarthSky (Bruce McClure, 2018): why experts disagree on what makes a supermoon, with Richard Nolle's original definition
  7. The Old Farmer's Almanac: Full Moon names
  8. NASA Watch the Skies: the monthly and seasonal blue moon
  9. NASA JPL: approximate positions of the planets, the Earth's orbit behind the Sun's place
  10. Jean Meeus, Astronomical Algorithms (2nd edition, 1998): chapter 47, the lunar theory behind the Moon's place, phase and distance; chapter 48, the lit fraction and the bright limb; chapter 25, the Sun's aberration
  11. IAU Office of Astronomy for Education: the lunar phases seen from the Southern Hemisphere
  12. NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio, CGI Moon Kit (Ernie Wright, Noah Petro, 2019): the Moon's colour from the LROC Wide Angle Camera's Hapke-normalised mosaic, the face every Moon on these pages is drawn from
  13. LRO Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter, LDEM_64 heights (NASA PDS Geosciences Node): the slopes that shade the ground near the terminator
  14. Archinal et al. (2011), Report of the IAU Working Group on Cartographic Coordinates and Rotational Elements: 2009, Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy 109, 101: the Moon's pole and turning, so the drawn face shows the libration of the moment
  15. NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio, Moon Phase and Libration, 2026: what libration and the position angle of the axis are, and the frames we compared our drawing with
  16. NASA JPL Horizons: the Moon's sub-Earth point and pole angle, which our drawing matches to within 0.01 degrees on the dates we test
  17. Krisciunas and Schaefer (1991), A model of the brightness of moonlight, Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 103, 1033: the Moon's brightness through its phases, which sets the earthshine against the sunlit side
  18. NASA Earth fact sheet: the Earth's radius and geometric albedo, for the earthshine
  19. The phases, distances and dates on this page are worked out by our own code from the sources above, the same lunar theory that places the Moon in the 3D viewer. The Moons are drawn by our own renderer from NASA's maps.