GIF
animation by Ed Stephan (stephan@cc.wwu.edu)
These "Virtual Reality Moon Phases" were created from ray-traced images of the
Moon. A Clementine spacecraft mosaic of the lunar surface was mapped onto a
sphere, and scenes were rendered as a virtual Sun "orbited" the Moon. The
depiction of lunar surface features suffers geometric distortion but the
terminator is correct with respect to the spherical Moon.
Current Phase of the Moon:
Updates every 4 hours):
If you leave all fields blank, you get the phase of the Moon for 0 hrs UT today.
Click here for more information of Sun and Moon phenomena.