December 17, 2025 Current Southern Hemisphere/Tomorrow’s Northern Hemisphere Moon Phase

You can find more moon phase details on both of the websites used in this post by clicking on each hyperlink.

Source: nineplanets.org

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The Moon phase for December 17th, 2025 is a Waning Crescent phase. This is the phase where the moon is less than 50% illuminated but has not yet reached 0% illumination (which would be a New Moon).

In this part of the moon cycle, it is getting closer and closer to the Sun as viewed from Earth and the night side of the Moon is facing earth with a decreasingly thin crescent being illuminated.

The waning (shrinking) crescement Moon will rise at around midnight, transit the meridian after sunrise, before setting after noon. This phase is best viewed 1-2 hours before sunrise and is a great time to see the features of the Moon’s surface. Along the illuminated crescent you can see the craters and mountains of the moon casting long shadows.

The Waxing Gibbous phase, like all moon phases, will last for just over 7 days. The actual length will vary because of the elliptical shaped orbit of the moon. During this Waxing Gibbous phase the moon will rise in the east in the mid- to late-afternoon and will be high in the eastern sky at sunset.

Assuming it’s a clear night, the Waxing Gibbous moon will then be visible through most of the night before setting just before sunrise.

Fun fact:

Phase Details

Phase: Waning Crescent

Moon age: 26.61 days

Moon illumination: 7.36%

Moon tilt: -43.906°

Moon angle: 0.49

Moon distance: 406,302.12 km

Moon sign: Scorpio

Source: MoonGiant.com

You can use this link to go forward or backward in time for Moon phase information. If you are curious, you can even find out what phase the Moon was in when you or anyone else was born.

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Visit the December 2025 Moon Phases Calendar to see all the daily moon phase for this month.

Today’s Waning Crescent Phase

The Waning Crescent on December 17 has an illumination of 5%. This is the percentage of the Moon illuminated by the Sun. The illumination is constantly changing and can vary up to 10% a day. On December 17 the Moon is 27.4 days old. This refers to how many days it has been since the last New Moon. It takes 29.53 days for the Moon to orbit the Earth and go through the lunar cycle of all 8 Moon phases.

Phase Details