The Overworld has an in-game day/night cycle which lasts twenty minutes from sunrise to sunset. The minecraft day-night cycle creates different light levels, colors of the sky and spawns and behavior for mobs.
Cycles are typically divided into day and night or day, night, dusk and dawn. Daytime lasts roughly 10 minutes, night about 7 minutes and both dusk and down last about 90 seconds.
DAYTIME
In the daytime, there is a light blue sky and the sun emits a level of brightness of 15. Passive mobs may spawn if the area meets their needs, while hostile mobs will only spawn in dark areas. Although the sun provides ample light for plants and trees, mushrooms grow better in dark places as they are not able to tolerate sunlight.
Skeletons and zombies will start to catch fire if they are exposed to sunlight directly overhead, however being in water will put out the flame. They can also change their location to a shaded area, like under a tree. Endermen and spiders will no longer be hostile towards the player, but they may still teleport away if there is nothing nearby to block it from doing so.
NIGHTTIME
The moon and stars can be seen in the dark blue sky at night. The moon will reach a level of 4 and no passive mobs will spawn, but they won’t despawn. Instead they look for any light near them and gather around it. As long as they meet their specific requirements, hostile mobs can now spawn everywhere.
The moon’s light is not enough for trees and plants to grow, though even if the plant are only exposed to the sky, they cannot be seen. Normally, plants will uproot when the light falls below level 9. However, all plants will remain rooted if they are exposed to sky above them.
Most mushrooms will have come up during the day but will scatter. Players can skip time to dawn by sleeping at any point during the night.
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DAWN (SUNRISE)
It’s still dark when the sun rises, but slowly the sun emits more and more light. The sun will start out larger than normal and gradually shrink to its daytime size.
The sky around the sun emits a dull orange glow that gradually turns into a light blue hue. The chance that any mob can spawn depends on the light level. But, skeletons and zombies will start to catch fire when they are too exposed to the sun.
Players can sleep in beds at night, but it will only advance time by a small amount. In other words, this type of sleeping is close to pointless.
DUSK (SUNSET)
The sun sets in the west, gradually emitting less light with time. The sky around the sun turns a bright orange and then gradually changes to dark blue before becoming small again. It will gradually get darker in the next 90 seconds, from about light level 15 to 4.
Depending on the amount of light in a location, any mob that meets its spawn requirement will be able to spawn.
Daytime in my #minecraft town pic.twitter.com/4RiMwve7
— Jedi (@Obywann) March 29, 2012
CLOCKS
Clocks can be constructed to indicate the time by means of the sun or moon; it is based on their position. The disk in the clock will slowly turn clockwise. Note that clocks do not work in the End and Nether because these dimensions lack a day/night cycle. Instead, clocks will spin around randomly.
BRIGHTNESS LEVEL
The brightness option in the game settings can vary your screen, depending on the level of brightness you prefer. If the settings are low, nighttime will be very dark and roaming around outside will be difficult as you can’t see anything. Turning to the brightest possible setting will enable you to see everything in your environment even from very far away. Brightness does not affect the actual light level of a night-time scene. In both minimum and maximum brightness, a nighttime scene will remain at the same level 4 lighting as any other type of scene.