Today’s Moon Phase

What is today’s moon phase?

The moon phase tonight is the shape of the lit part of the Moon you can see in the sky right now. The Moon does not make its own light; it reflects sunlight, and as it orbits Earth we see different amounts of its sunlit half. That changing view is the lunar cycle, and it repeats about every 29.53 days, running from new moon, through the waxing phases, to full moon, and back down through the waning phases.

The moon phase checker at the top of this page answers “what is today’s moon phase” instantly. It shows tonight’s phase with a big moon emoji and a one-line plain-language meaning, plus the numbers behind it: illumination percentage, moon age in days, the Moon’s approximate distance from Earth in kilometers, and the Moon’s zodiac sign and degree in the tropical zodiac. It also tells you when the next full moon and the next new moon fall, with a day countdown, and flags it when a nearby full moon is close enough to count as a supermoon. The checker updates automatically every day, so whenever you open this page you see today’s moon phase with no effort.

For example, on October 16, 2026 the checker reports a Waxing Crescent moon, about 30.0% illuminated, with a moon age of 5.4 days, sitting about 405,189 km from Earth in Sagittarius at 29.5 degrees. The next full moon falls on October 26, 2026 (in 10 days) and the next new moon on November 9, 2026 (in 24 days). Every one of those numbers is computed live from orbital mechanics, not looked up in a table, and the worked example further down this page walks through exactly how each value is found.

Knowing tonight’s moon phase is useful in more ways than astrology. Stargazers plan around the new moon, when dark skies show the faintest objects, and avoid the full moon, when moonlight washes the sky out. Photographers chase the full moon near the horizon for dramatic shots. Gardeners and anglers follow old lunar traditions tied to the cycle. And in astrology, the phase flavors the whole chart: a birth under a full moon reads very differently from a birth under a new moon in traditional interpretation.

How to use the moon phase checker

1. Check today’s phase. The page loads with today’s date already filled in, so the current moon phase, illumination, moon age, distance, and Moon sign appear immediately. No signup, no settings.
2. Pick any other date to explore. Use the date picker to choose any date from 1900 through 2100, then press “Check moon phase”. The phase is computed for 12:00 UTC on the date you pick, so you can look up the moon on your birthday, a wedding date, or any night you plan to be outside.
3. Jump back to today. The “Use today” button resets the picker to the current date and recalculates in one tap.
4. Read the three result cards. The first card gives the phase name, the moon emoji, and a one-line meaning. The second card lists the data: illumination, moon age, approximate distance, and Moon sign. The third card shows what is coming up: the next full moon and next new moon with countdowns, plus a supermoon note when one applies.
5. Copy or print the summary. “Copy summary” puts the whole result on your clipboard as plain text, handy for pasting into a journal or a message. “Print” produces a clean paper copy with the inputs hidden.

How it works

There is no moon phase table hidden behind this tool. Every number is computed from the date you enter using the same kind of math astronomers use for approximate lunar positions.

First, your date is converted to a day number, the count of days since the start of the year 2000, evaluated at 12:00 UTC. From that day number the calculator finds the geocentric tropical longitudes of the Sun and the Moon: each body’s orbital elements are evaluated for the day, Kepler’s equation is solved by iteration to get the true position on its orbit, and for the Moon a set of perturbation terms is added to correct the simple ellipse. This follows Paul Schlyter’s well-known planetary computation guide (https://stjarnhimlen.se/comp/ppcomp.html), and the Sun/Moon core is the same engine used across ZodiaScope tools, verified to better than 0.05 degrees against Swiss Ephemeris reference positions.

The phase itself comes from the elongation: the difference between the Moon’s longitude and the Sun’s longitude, wrapped into 0 to 360 degrees. At new moon the elongation is near 0 degrees (the Moon sits between Earth and the Sun), at full moon it is near 180 degrees (Earth sits between the Sun and the Moon). The eight phases are 45-degree bins around the circle: New Moon from 337.5 to 22.5 degrees, Waxing Crescent 22.5 to 67.5, First Quarter 67.5 to 112.5, Waxing Gibbous 112.5 to 157.5, Full Moon 157.5 to 202.5, Waning Gibbous 202.5 to 247.5, Last Quarter 247.5 to 292.5, and Waning Crescent 292.5 to 337.5. The background on lunar phases at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_phase describes the same geometry.

Illumination is the fraction of the Moon’s visible face that is lit, computed as (1 – cos(elongation)) / 2. At new moon this gives 0%, at full moon 100%, at the quarters 50%. It is approximate because it treats the Moon as a smooth sphere and ignores libration and your viewing position.

Moon age is how far the Moon has traveled through its current cycle, in days: elongation / 360 x 29.530588853, where 29.530588853 days is the mean synodic month, the average time from one new moon to the next. A moon age of 5.4 days means the last new moon was about five and a half days ago.

Distance uses the low-precision lunar distance formula from Jean Meeus’ “Astronomical Algorithms”: 385000.6 – 20905*cos(Mm) – 3699*cos(2*D – Mm) – 2956*cos(2*D) kilometers, where Mm is the Moon’s mean anomaly and D is the mean elongation, both in degrees. The Moon’s orbit is noticeably elliptical, so its distance swings between roughly 356,000 km at perigee and 406,000 km at apogee. This formula captures that swing to within a few thousand kilometers, which is why the tool rounds the result to the nearest kilometer and labels it approximate.

The Moon sign comes from the same tropical longitude used for the phase: divide the 360-degree circle into the twelve zodiac signs of 30 degrees each, starting with Aries at 0 degrees, and read off the sign and the degree within it. This is the tropical zodiac used in Western astrology, anchored to the March equinox.

The next new and full moons are found by scanning forward day by day for the elongation crossing 0 or 180 degrees, then bisecting the crossing to 1-minute precision. A full moon counts as “close to a supermoon” when a full moon within 3 days of your chosen date has a computed distance under 360,000 km.

Honest limits. The phase is computed at 12:00 UTC of the chosen date, so it is a daily snapshot, not the exact instant of the phase; the Moon’s elongation changes about 12 degrees a day, so the true new or full moment can fall hours away from noon. Illumination is approximate, and distance is approximate by design. Within those limits, the engine reproduces published new and full moon instants to within minutes: for example it finds the October 2026 full moon at 04:18 UTC against the published 04:12 UTC, and the November 2026 new moon at 07:02 UTC exactly.

Worked example

Here is a full worked example with real computed values, so you can see exactly what the checker does. Take October 16, 2026, the day this page was published.

The calculator converts the date to its day number and evaluates the Sun and Moon at 12:00 UTC. It finds the Sun at a tropical longitude of about 203.14 degrees and the Moon at about 269.52 degrees. The elongation, Moon minus Sun wrapped to 360 degrees, is 66.38 degrees. That falls in the 22.5 to 67.5 degree bin, so the phase is Waxing Crescent.

From the elongation of 66.38 degrees: illumination is (1 – cos(66.38)) / 2 = 30.0%; moon age is 66.38 / 360 x 29.530588853 = 5.4 days, which fits, since the new moon fell on October 10; and the Meeus distance formula gives about 405,189 km, near apogee, which is why the Moon looks a touch smaller than average this week. The Moon’s longitude of 269.52 degrees falls in the ninth 30-degree slice of the tropical zodiac, so the Moon is in Sagittarius at 29.5 degrees.

Scanning forward from October 16, the elongation next crosses 180 degrees on October 26, 2026 at 04:18 UTC, the full moon, which is in 10 days; the published instant is 04:12 UTC, six minutes earlier. It next crosses 0/360 degrees on November 9, 2026 at 07:02 UTC, the new moon, in 24 days, matching the published instant to the minute. The full moon’s computed distance is about 369,138 km, above the 360,000 km supermoon line, so no supermoon note appears for this date. If you enter October 16, 2026 into the checker above, you should see exactly these results.

Frequently asked questions

What phase is the moon in tonight?

The moon phase checker at the top of this page shows tonight’s phase automatically, because it loads with today’s date already filled in. For example, on October 16, 2026 it reports a Waxing Crescent moon about 30% illuminated, with a moon age of 5.4 days. Use the date picker to see the phase for any other night, from 1900 through 2100.

When is the next full moon?

The “Coming up” card lists the next full moon with a day countdown. It is found by scanning the Moon’s elongation forward for the 180-degree crossing, then pinning the instant down to the minute. From October 16, 2026 the next full moon falls on October 26, 2026, the traditional Hunter’s Moon, and the next new moon on November 9, 2026. Enter any date to see the full and new moons coming up from there.

How accurate is this moon phase checker?

The Sun and Moon positions come from Keplerian orbital elements with lunar perturbation terms, the same engine used across ZodiaScope tools, verified to better than 0.05 degrees against Swiss Ephemeris reference positions. It reproduces published new and full moon instants within minutes: the November 2026 new moon to the exact minute, the October 2026 full moon within about six minutes. Phase names use wide 45-degree bins, so the reported phase is robust; only a date within hours of the exact new, quarter, or full instant could read differently at that precise moment, and the tool is a daily snapshot computed at 12:00 UTC in any case.

What is a supermoon?

A supermoon is a full moon that happens near the Moon’s closest approach to Earth (perigee), so the Moon looks slightly larger and brighter than an average full moon. There is no single official definition, so this checker uses a clear, stated rule: it shows a “close to a supermoon” note when a full moon within 3 days of your chosen date has a computed distance under 360,000 km. The distance itself is approximate, from the low-precision Meeus formula.

Does the moon phase depend on where I live?

No. The phase comes from geocentric positions computed at 12:00 UTC, so everyone on Earth gets the same phase for a given date. What does depend on your location is when the Moon rises and sets and how high it climbs in your sky, which this checker does not compute. If you need moonrise times for observing or photography, use a location-based tool alongside this one.

Is the moon phase checker free to use?

Yes, completely. There is no signup and no account. The calculation runs entirely in your browser: the date you enter never leaves your device, nothing is sent to a server, and nothing is stored. Closing the page erases everything.

Related tools

• Birth date moon phase calculator: find the exact moon phase on the day you were born, with illumination and moon age.
• Moon phase on my birthday: look up the moon phase for any birthday, past or future, in seconds.
• What time is sunrise today: today’s sunrise, sunset, and day length, the Sun half of the sky picture.
• Lunar calculators: the full ZodiaScope collection of Moon tools, from phases to moonrise.
• All astrology calculators: browse the complete ZodiaScope calculator collection.
• Moon phase calendar: every day’s moon phase and the exact quarter instants for any month.

About the author

This moon phase checker was built by the ZodiaScope editorial team. We publish astronomy-accurate astrology tools: every position behind the phase is computed live from orbital mechanics, not looked up in a table, and the methods are documented so the results can be checked. Our interpretations follow traditional astrology and are offered for reflection and entertainment.

Published: October 16, 2026. Last updated: October 16, 2026.