The Moon at perihelion

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Moon feed


Objects: The Moon

The Moon's monthly orbit around the Earth will carry it to its closest point to the Sun – its perihelion – at a distance of 1.0124 AU from the Sun.

This happens at around the time when the Moon's orbit carries it between the Sun and the Earth, at around the same time that it passes new moon.

At the moment of the Moon's perihelion, the Earth will lie at a distance of 1.0149 AU from the Sun, and the Moon will lie at a distance of 1.0124 AU from the Sun.

This distance between the Earth and Moon will be 0.0026 AU (388,000 km).

The positions of the Sun and Moon in the sky will be:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Angular Size
The Moon 04h13m40s 18°52'N Taurus 30'46"
Sun (centre) 05h01m 22°44'N Taurus 31'31"

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

The sky on 6 Jun 2032

The sky on 6 June 2032
Sunrise
05:17
Sunset
20:22
Twilight ends
22:28
Twilight begins
03:12


Waning Crescent

0%

28 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 06:18 14:00 21:42
Venus 05:24 12:54 20:24
Moon 04:19 11:39 19:04
Mars 05:57 13:33 21:09
Jupiter 23:17 04:05 08:54
Saturn 06:00 13:27 20:54
All times shown in EDT.

Warning

Never attempt to point a pair of binoculars or a telescope at an object close to the Sun. Doing so may result in immediate and permanent blindness.

Source

The circumstances of this event were computed using the DE430 planetary ephemeris published by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

This event was automatically generated by searching the ephemeris for planetary alignments which are of interest to amateur astronomers, and the text above was generated based on an estimate of your location.

Related news

31 May 2032  –  Moon at Last Quarter
07 Jun 2032  –  New Moon
15 Jun 2032  –  Moon at First Quarter
23 Jun 2032  –  Full Moon

Image credit

Simulated image courtesy of Tom Ruen.

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