How to use
Check the large emoji for the calculated current moon phase (UTC).
Copy the current emoji, or pick any of the eight phase symbols below.
Paste into a caption, bio, or message—rendering depends on the app.
UTC lunar approximation
Current moon phase emoji
Copy the current moon phase emoji calculated in your browser from the date and UTC, with the as-of label visible. All eight lunar phase symbols sit below for extra copy.
All eight moon phase emoji
Copy any phase, not only the current one.
What is this?
This page measures elapsed UTC time from a known new-moon epoch, wraps it by the mean 29.530588853-day synodic month, and bins the age into eight equal emoji phases. A bin spans about 3.69 days, so the label can disagree with an observatory near a boundary. It is for everyday copy-and-paste, not an ephemeris or local sky forecast.
Phase order and hemisphere differences
The usual eight-step order is new moon, waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full moon, waning gibbous, last quarter, and waning crescent. Waxing means the illuminated portion is growing; waning means it is shrinking. The sequence repeats through the roughly 29.5-day lunar cycle, while the shelf lets you copy any phase instead of only today’s estimate.
Moon phases occur at the same time worldwide, but their visible orientation changes with latitude and viewing angle. In broad terms, waxing often appears lit on the right in the Northern Hemisphere and on the left in the Southern Hemisphere. Emoji artwork does not adapt to your location, and apps may draw the same symbol differently, so it should not be used as a precise picture of the local sky.
Frequently asked questions
Is this the exact current moon phase?
It is a browser-side mean-cycle approximation. Eight equal bins cannot reproduce ephemeris event times, and the label is least reliable near a bin boundary.
Why UTC?
The calculation uses the UTC instant so server and browser results share one boundary. It does not convert the phase to local civil midnight or predict local moonrise.
Can I copy every moon phase emoji?
Yes. The shelf lists all eight phase emoji so you can copy any of them, not only the current one.
Is this astrology or a forecast?
No. The page only maps approximate lunar phases to emoji. It does not provide horoscopes or predictions.
What order do the eight phases follow?
They run from new through waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full, waning gibbous, last quarter, and waning crescent before repeating.
Why can the moon look reversed in another hemisphere?
Observers view the Moon from different orientations on Earth. The lunar phase is the same, but the illuminated side can appear reversed; a fixed emoji does not model that viewing angle.
Method references
The linked references explain physical phase timing; LiteralKit’s eight-bin shortcut remains an approximation.