Moon

The Moon is a square-like object in the sky, added in Update 0.7.3. It only appears at night. The moon cycles through a series of phases, as shown in the pictures. Moon phases were added in update 0.7.4.

The moon illuminates topmost blocks during the night in the same way that the sun illuminates them in the day, but only illuminates them to a light level of four, rather than the sun's fifteen. You can track the moon's and sun's progress using a Clock.

Moon Phases
The Moon goes through eight lunar phases, and changes phase every night. The phases are (in chronological order):


 * Full Moon
 * Waning Gibbous
 * Last Quarter
 * Waning Crescent
 * New Moon
 * Waxing Crescent
 * First Quarter
 * Waxing Gibbous

This allows the player to keep rough track of the passage of time, even after spending a few game days underground.

Comparison to Real-World Calendars:
In the real world, the lunar cycle is 29½ days, which is the basis for our months. However, most real-world calendars are dominated by the longer solar cycle, which produces our year. In Minecraft, the "lunar month" is only eight game days (closer to a week), and there is no trace of a solar cycle. One could certainly build larger calendars by grouping lunar "monthweeks", but any such system is necessarily arbitrary. Then too, animal and crop growth (which drove the development of real-world calendars) take place in game days, while their real-world equivalents require months or years. One Minecraft lunar cycle takes 2 hours 40 minutes of play time and three lunar cycles take 8 hours of playtime. This means there are 9 lunar cycles in one real-world day (24 hours) of play.

Trivia:

 * In creative, if you flew high enough, the moon could be seen under the world. This bug was removed in update 0.7.4.
 * Night time lasts 7 minutes, plus 1.5 minutes each of sunrising and sunsetting.
 * Grass blocks or Saplings do not grow in moonlight, however they won't decay in moonlight either.