Minecraft:Sun

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File:Sun.png

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File:Sun Vibrant Visuals.png

The sun with Vibrant Visuals

The sun is a celestial body that provides Minecraft:light for the Minecraft:Overworld.

Daytime

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The sun and Minecraft:moon rise in the east and set in the west.

When the player creates a new Minecraft:world, the time is set to dawn and the sun starts on the horizon. As time passes, it slowly moves across the sky. As the sun sets, the Minecraft:moon rises. Overall, Minecraft:daytime lasts 10 minutes (in real-time).

Sunlight

File:Mob burning.png

Screenshot of a skeleton burning in sunlight

Sunlight is the Minecraft:light cast from the sky that burns various Minecraft:undead mobs during daytime. Mobs can shelter from the sunlight by staying underneath any block that does not fully let light through, like Minecraft:glass does, therefore creating a shadow. Minecraft:Clouds can hide the sun, but do not technically block any light and let mobs still burn. During inclement Minecraft:weather, the sky darkens and reduces the amount of light in the world.

Strictly speaking, sunlight can be considered as the presence of both an Minecraft:internal sky light level of at least 12 and a Minecraft:sky light level of 15. Due to this, it is possible to burn undead mobs during Minecraft:rainy weather by covering them with glass.

For more information on how light affects the world, see Light § Effects of light.

The sun itself isn't visible when "Beautiful Skies" are turned off, or during Minecraft:precipitation (even in dry biomes Template:In). When the camera faces the sun Template:In, the environment darkens and the sun grows slightly bigger. Furthermore, in Bedrock Edition, the sun is noticably bigger during sunset, and disappears at night, while it is still visible below the void in Java Edition. The sun has a pixelated glow texture, which brightens during sunset and sunrise.Template:Only

File:Sunlight Vibrant Visuals.png

Example of the sun creating shadows and reflections with Vibrant Visuals

With Minecraft:Vibrant Visuals, the sun is considered a global directional light source, which creates pixelated shadows from blocks, entities, and clouds on all objects. Minecraft:Water bodies exposed to sunlight create specular highlights on the surface, and project water caustics underwater. With direct diffuse, sunlight illuminates directly exposed surfaces and Minecraft:clouds with an illuminance of 100 lumen, faded during sunrise and sunset. Most cold biomes have brighter sunlight at dusk and dawn, dark forests are limited at 70 lumen, ice spikes at 50, and Minecraft:pale gardens at 5. Diffuse illumination is colored bright orange, fading slightly darker near sunrise and sunset, different shades of purple in mushroom fields, Template:Color in pale gardens, and Template:Color in ice spikes.

During sunrise and sunset, the sun creates glowing mie scattering in the Minecraft:atmospherics. Sunlight also creates volumetric fog and light shafts. Depending on the biome, this creates a glow around the sun and scattering effects in its direction, also visible underwater. Through Minecraft:cave openings, the directional lighting can also illuminate areas with lower sky light levels. Light bloom is also visible aorund the sun.

History

File:Sun of 1.9.png

Example of sunset with a “round” sun before Beta 1.9 pre-release 6

Issues

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Trivia

If the player is underwater or underground and looks at the sun, it appears the same as the sun at sunset. This is due to the way the sun is rendered when exposed to the sky.
The sun's trajectory forms a perfect vertical circle perpendicular to the ground plane, passing directly through the zenith at noon. This occurs because the rendering logic does not apply any Z-axis rotation or offset to simulate axial tilt or latitude. As a result, the sun does not bias towards the south as it would in the Earth's Northern Hemisphere.
- A custom orbital offset can be applied with Minecraft:Vibrant Visuals resource packs.