New Moon Emoji 🌑
Unicode U+1F311 · added in Unicode 6.0 (2010) · first of the 8 moon phases
What the new moon emoji means
🌑 is the first symbol in the moon-phase set. It shows the Moon as a black disk: the near side is turned toward Earth, but sunlight is falling on the far side, so no bright slice is visible. Astronomers call that phase new moon. The character is the plain disk, with no eyes and no mouth.
In messages and captions it stands in for night, space, and a closed or mysterious feeling — a dark sky rather than a bright full moon. It is the phase people mean when they type “new moon emoji,” not a crescent and not a face.
🌚 is a different emoji, New Moon Face. Same dark circle, plus a face. 🌑 (U+1F311) is the phase. 🌚 (U+1F31A) is the face. Copy 🌚 when you want the face and 🌑 when you want the phase.
How to copy the new moon emoji
Use the Copy button above. It puts 🌑 on your clipboard. Paste it into a text, a bio, or a password field.
In HTML, the character is 🌑. You can also paste the character itself: 🌑
When a new moon actually happens
A new moon occurs about once every 29.5 days, at the start of the lunar cycle. 🌑 is the emoji for that phase. It is not the emoji for every day.
To see which of the eight phase emojis matches a UTC day, open the current phase of the moon emoji page.
The other moon phase emojis
New moon, black moon, and dark moon
New moon is the astronomical phase: the Moon sits between Earth and the Sun, and the side facing us is dark. 🌑 names that phase.
Dark moon is a looser name for the Moon when you cannot see it, often used for the same night as new moon or the nights just around it. There is no separate dark moon emoji. People still paste 🌑.
Black moon is not one of the eight phases. In almanacs it usually means a second new moon in a calendar month, or a third new moon in a season that has four. The emoji is still 🌑. The name describes when that new moon falls, not a different symbol.
FAQ
- What does the 🌑 new moon emoji mean?
- 🌑 is the new moon symbol: a dark disk, the first of the eight moon-phase emojis. People use it for night, space, and a quiet or mysterious mood. It is not the same character as 🌚 New Moon Face.
- What is the difference between 🌑 and 🌚?
- 🌑 (U+1F311) is only the unlit disk. 🌚 (U+1F31A) is New Moon Face, the same dark disk with eyes and a mouth. Use 🌑 when you mean the phase. Use 🌚 when you want a face.
- How often does a new moon happen?
- A new moon comes about every 29.5 days. 🌑 is the emoji for that phase, not a live sky report. For the phase emoji of a given UTC day, use the current phase of the moon emoji page.
- Which moon emoji does Password Game Rule 13 need?
- Rule 13 asks for the current phase, and that is not always 🌑. The accepted character is one of the eight phase emojis for that UTC day. See Password Game Rule 13, then copy the phase from the daily page.