Glowstone

Overview

Glowstone is the Nether's own light source: bright yellow clusters that grow on the ceilings of nether wastes caverns, giving off light level 15 — the maximum, the same as a torch and brighter than a lantern's effective spread. It is the standard bulk lighting for anyone who has been to the Nether, because a block of it lights a wide area from a ceiling and does not look like a torch. The mechanic to know is the drop: mined without Silk Touch, a glowstone block shatters into 2 to 4 glowstone dust, and 4 dust craft back into a block, so mining it normally is a loss on average. With Silk Touch you get the whole block, which is why a Silk Touch pickaxe roughly doubles the return on a glowstone trip. The dust itself is not wasted, though — glowstone dust strengthens a potion, raising it from level I to level II, and it is the ingredient in a redstone lamp and a spectral arrow. Glowstone is also what charges a respawn anchor, at one full block per charge.

Maximum-brightness lighting at level 15, potion strengthening from level I to level II, redstone lamps, and charging a respawn anchor at 1 block per charge.

In Minecraft 1.21.4, Glowstone is a light-emitting block. A crafting table turns its ingredients into Glowstone. It breaks almost instantly, with a hardness of just 0.3.

You can break it by hand without losing the drop. Breaking it produces Glowstone Dust. It emits light level 15 — bright enough on its own to stop hostile mobs spawning nearby.

It offers almost no protection from explosions (0.3 blast resistance). A full stack holds 64. It is crafted from Glowstone Dust.

You will need it for Redstone Lamp and Respawn Anchor.

How to get it

Break it from the ceilings of nether wastes caverns. Without Silk Touch it drops 2 to 4 dust, and 4 dust rebuild a block, so a Silk Touch pickaxe roughly doubles what you bring home.

Tips

Silk Touch roughly doubles your yield: whole blocks instead of an average of 3 dust that rebuild less than 1.
Glowstone dust raises a potion's level; redstone dust extends its duration, and the two cannot be combined.
It grows on ceilings, so bring blocks to build up to it or you will lose half of it into the lava below.
A respawn anchor takes 4 charges and each charge is 1 full glowstone block, not dust.

Properties

Blast resistance on Glowstone is 0.3, so any explosion nearby takes it out. It stops light entirely and gives off light level 15. A single slot takes 64, the usual full stack. Being renewable, it can be produced indefinitely in one world. Broken normally it drops Glowstone Dust rather than itself; Silk Touch is what returns the block, and Fortune raises the ordinary drop instead.

Transparent: No
Required tool: Any
Renewable: Yes