Glowstone

This article is about the block. For the dust, see Glowstone Dust.

Glowstone

Renewable	Yes
Stackable	Yes (64)
Tool	Any tool
Blast resistance	0.3
Hardness	0.3
Luminant	Yes (15)
Transparent	Yes
Flammable	No
Catches fire from lava	No

Glowstone is a light-emitting block that appears in the Nether, and that can be acquired from trading.

Obtaining

Natural generation

A naturally occurring cluster of glowstone in the underside of netherrack.

Glowstone occurs naturally only in the Nether, where it generates in crystalline clusters on the underside of ceilings or overhangs. It can also generate as a part of bastion remnants.

Breaking

See also: Fortune § Discrete random

If glowstone is broken using a tool with Silk Touch, the block drops itself. If a tool with Fortune is used, it has a higher chance of dropping a large amount of glowstone dust—but never more than 4. When a glowstone block is broken with any other tool, it drops 2–4 glowstone dust.

Block	Glowstone
Hardness	0.3
Breaking time
Default	0.45

Chest loot

Item	Structure	Container	Quantity	Chance
Java Edition
Glowstone	Bastion remnant	Hoglin stable chest	1–5	26.2%
Java Edition 1.16.2[upcoming]
Glowstone	Bastion remnant	Hoglin stable chest	3–6	22.8%
Bedrock Edition
Glowstone	Bastion remnant	Hoglin stable chest	1–5	26.2%

Crafting

Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Glowstone Dust

Trading

Journeyman-level Cleric villagers offer to sell one glowstone for four emeralds.‌^{[Java Edition only]}

Wandering traders sell glowstone for two emeralds.

Usage

Analyzing glowstone in a material reducer, it turns out to be a 1:1:1:1:1 mixture of Argon, Neon and Krypton noble gases, Boron and an unknown Element.‌^{[Bedrock and Education editions only]}

Light source

Glowstone blocks emit a light level of 15, the brightest possible light level in the game. They emit the same amount of light as lanterns, sea lanterns, jack o'lanterns, redstone lamps, conduits, beacons and shroomlights.

Redstone circuits

			A
			B

A glowstone block can transmit power up, but not down. Lamp A is powered because the redstone signal travels up the glowstone block. Lamp B is off as the signal would have to go down the glowstone, which is not possible.

When placing redstone on a glowstone block, being a transparent block, signals can pass from one block to another diagonally. Redstone wire, even though it may appear to connect up the side of a glowstone block and to the wire portion on top, does not send a redstone signal down the glowstone block. This makes glowstone effective for vertical diodes, logic gate designs, and space-efficient instant vertical redstone.

Note that upside-down slabs can be used for the same purpose, and are easier to obtain.

Note blocks

Glowstone can be placed under note blocks to produce pling sounds.

Respawn anchors

Glowstone is used to charge respawn anchors.

Sounds

Java Edition:

Sound	Subtitle	Source	Description	Namespaced ID	Translation key	Volume	Pitch	Attenuation distance
	Block broken	Blocks	Breaking the block	block.glass.break	subtitles.block.generic.break	1.0	0.8	16
	None	Blocks	Falling on the block with fall damage	block.glass.fall	None	0.5	0.75	16
	Block breaking	Blocks	Mining the block	block.glass.hit	subtitles.block.generic.hit	0.25	0.5	16
	Block placed	Blocks	Placing the block	block.glass.place	subtitles.block.generic.place	1.0	0.8	16
	Footsteps	Blocks	Walking on the block	block.glass.step	subtitles.block.generic.footsteps	0.15	1.0	16

Bedrock Edition: ^{[needs in-game testing]}

Sound	Description	Namespaced ID	Volume	Pitch
?	Breaking the block	dig.glass	?	0.8
?	Falling on the block with fall damage	fall.glass	?	?
?	Mining the block	hit.glass	?	0.5
?	Jumping from the block	jump.glass	?	?
?	Falling on the block without fall damage	land.glass	?	?
?	Walking on the block	step.glass	?	?
?	Placing the block	use.glass	?	0.8

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Name	Namespaced ID	Translation key
Glowstone	glowstone	block.minecraft.glowstone

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Namespaced ID	Numeric ID	Translation key
Glowstone	glowstone	89	tile.glowstone.name

Advancements

Main article: Advancement

Icon	Advancement	In-game description	Parent	Actual requirements (if different)	Namespaced ID
	Not Quite "Nine" Lives	Charge a Respawn Anchor to the maximum	Who is Cutting Onions?	—	nether/charge_respawn_anchor

History

Java Edition Alpha
v1.2.0		preview			Added glowstone.
					Glowstone is shown to drop itself when mined.
		?			The crafting recipe for glowstone is 3×3 glowstone dust. Recipe Ingredients Crafting recipe Glowstone Dust
					The drop rate of glowstone dust from mined glowstone is 1.
					The material type of glowstone is currently "glass".
Java Edition Beta
1.6.6					The crafting recipe of glowstone has changed to 2×2 glowstone dust.
					The drop rate of glowstone dust from mined glowstone has increased to 2–4.
					The material type of glowstone has changed to "stone", meaning a pickaxe is now needed to drop items and block dependent blocks can now be placed on the block.
1.7.3					Harvesting glowstone now requires an iron pickaxe or higher.
Java Edition
1.0.0		Beta 1.9 Prerelease 5			The texture of glowstone has changed, removing the border on the outside.
		RC1			The material type of glowstone has changed once again to "glass".
1.2.1		12w06a			Redstone can now be placed on glowstone. Redstone wire can now transmit only upward through it.
		12w07a			Glowstone is now used to craft redstone lamps.
1.3.1		12w21a			Priest villagers now sell 2–3 glowstone for 1 emerald.
1.5		13w02a			In texture packs, glowstone now use /textures/blocks/lightgem.png.
1.7.2		13w41a			Glowstone can no longer be used to see through blocks.
1.8		14w02a			Trading has changed: cleric villagers now sell 1–3 glowstone for 1 emerald.
1.13		17w47a			Prior to The Flattening, this block's numeral ID was 89.
1.14		18w43a			The texture of glowstone has changed.
		18w47a			The texture of glowstone has changed, once again.
		19w09a			Glowstone now makes a "pling" sound when placed under a note block.
1.16		20w12a			Glowstone is now used to craft and power up the Respawn Anchor.
		20w16a			Glowstone now generates in bastion remnants chests.
Pocket Edition Alpha
0.5.0					Added glowstone.
0.9.0		build 1			Smooth lighting has removed from glowstone.
0.12.1		build 1			Glowstone can now be obtained by breaking it using the Silk Touch enchantment.
0.13.0		build 1			Glowstone is now used to craft redstone lamps.
Pocket Edition
1.0.4		alpha 1.0.4.0			Glowstone is now sold by cleric villagers.
Bedrock Edition
1.10.0		beta 1.10.0.3			Glowstone is now sold by the new wandering trader.
					The texture of glowstone has changed.
1.11.0		beta 1.11.0.4			Trading has changed, cleric villagers no longer sell glowstone.
1.13.0		beta 1.13.0.9			Glowstone now causes a note block to make a "pling" sound when placed under it.
Legacy Console Edition
TU1	CU1	1.0	Patch 1	1.0.1	Added glowstone.
		1.90			The texture of glowstone has changed.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0					Added glowstone.

Trivia

• Since glowstone blocks become block entities when moved by pistons, this momentarily stops them from giving off light. This will not be fixed.
• Rarely, glowstone can be found touching the ground if the ceiling it was generated on was extremely low (2–3 blocks of clearance).
• Glowstone, although transparent, causes the sky light to count down as if it hit a non-transparent block, while still letting through this light.
• The design of glowstone was inspired by Stony-iron meteorites.

Gallery

• 

  The melting pattern of glowstone.

• 

  Purchasing glowstone from a cleric villager.

• 

  A diode made using glowstone.

• 

  An example of the glowstone redstone results.

• 

  A small glowstone cluster

• 

  A large glowstone cluster.

References

Redstone

View at: Template:Redstone/content [edit]

Blocks

View at: Template:Blocks/content [edit]