JUNE NEW MOON 2018

June New Moon 2018.

The new moon arrives in the first half of June, and as our satellite becomes visible in the evening sky after that, it will join Mercury, Venus and other visible planets.

The moon will officially enter new phase at 3:43 p.m. EDT (1943 GMT) on June 13. A new moon occurs when the moon is between the sun and Earth. Technically, both objects are on the same north-south line that passes through the celestial pole, near the star Polaris. (This is also called a conjunction, as applied to other celestial bodies, so you could say the sun and the moon are in conjunction with each other.)

Invisible to Earthbound observers, the new moon rises and sets at nearly the same time as the sun. The only time the new moon is visible is during partial or total solar eclipses, when the moon passes exactly between Earth and the sun. That isn't happening this time. (The next partial solar eclipse will be on July 13, and the next total solar eclipse will be on July 2, 2019.) While sometimes the dark side of the thin crescent moon is visible because of "Earthshine" — the light reflected back onto the moon from the Earth – this isn't the case for the new moon because the sun is so close to it.