Moon

The moon is a celestial body that appears in the night sky.

Nighttime

Nighttime begins after the sun has fully set in the west and the moon has risen in the east. As time passes, the moon moves westward across the sky. Overall, nighttime lasts about 7 minutes (in real-time). Players can track the moon's position in the sky using a clock.

During the night, the moon illuminates the surface in the same manner as the sun; however, light levels fall to a minimum of four.

Grass blocks and saplings do not grow in moonlight, nor do they decay. To grow them at night requires the use of light sources such as torches. On the other hand, crops can continue to grow with sufficient client light, even if not lit up by torches ‌.

Nighttime can be skipped entirely using a bed, provided there are no monsters nearby.

Stars

Together with the moon, the night sky also consists of stars. Stars appear as bright points, and the starfield rotates with the moon, rising in the east and descending in the west, as the night progresses.

Phases

The Moon is always opposite of the Sun, but still goes through eight lunar phases, and changes phase at the end of every sunrise. This allows the player to keep rough track of the passage of time, even after spending a few game days underground.

The phases of the moon are (in chronological order as they appear in-game, which are in the direction of real moon phases in the southern hemisphere except in Bedrock Edition where it's in reverse:

1. Full Moon
2. Waning Gibbous
3. Third Quarter
4. Waning Crescent
5. New Moon
6. Waxing Crescent
7. First Quarter
8. Waxing Gibbous

The pixels of the first quarter phase moon and waxing gibbous moon presents a more rounded, organic shape than the corresponding waning phase moons that present a more squared-off appearance. This can help a player in timing a slime hunt in a swamp (see below).

There is no explicit command to change the moon's phase, but using /time add 24000 advances time by one day toward the next phase. To go back one phase, using /time add 168000 advances time by 7 days, which is one full lunar cycle minus one moon phase.

There is an equation to calculate the moon phase on any given day in Minecraft: phase = (day mod 8) + 1. The day can be found in the F3 screen in Java Edition, or by enabling the "Show days played" world setting in Bedrock Edition, and the phase matches to the list shown above.

Effects on mobs

The phase of the moon has three subtle effects on mob spawning:

• The number of slimes that spawn in swamps is proportional to the moon's fullness: They are most numerous during the full moon and none spawn during the new moon. (The moon's phase does not influence the normal spawning of slimes in designated chunks at altitudes below y=40.)
• The fuller the moon, the higher the chance skeletons and zombies have the ability to pick up items and spawn with weapons and armor. Furthermore, there is a higher chance for their equipment to be enchanted, and if it is, the enchantment levels are higher. A fuller moon also gives spiders a greater chance to spawn with random beneficial status effects, including invisibility‌. All of these effects combine with the world's difficulty, and higher difficulty levels increase the chance of mob buffs.
• Only on a full moon, black cats have a 1/11 chance of spawning.

History

Issues

Issues relating to "Moon" are maintained on the bug tracker. Issues should be reported and viewed there.

Trivia

• One Minecraft lunar cycle (from full moon to full moon) takes 2 hours and 40 minutes of playtime. This means there are approximately 9 lunar cycles in one real-world day (24 hours) of play.
• The star pattern is based on a seed, but not the current world's seed. The stars are always based on the same seed, regardless of the world seed.
• There is a patch of the full moon that is off color, being
   #606978 instead of
   #60687A. This can be found 1 4×4 patch above the bottom right corner.

Gallery

Screenshots

• 
  The full moon and the stars in the night sky
• 
  Moonrise in the forest
• 
  The moon shines through the trees of a dark forest.
• 
  A crescent moon rises over the hills.
• 
  The moon peeks through the opening of a cave.

Mojang screenshots

• 
  The separate moon phases in Minecraft.^[4] (viewed in the eastern sky; rising)
• 
  The separate moon phases in Beta 1.9 Prerelease 4 and Beta 1.9 Prerelease 5.
• 
  Alex, Efe, and a cat during a full moon.^[5]
• 
  The old round and square sun and moon textures

In other media

See also

• Sun

References

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