Nether Portal (block)

The Nether Portal block is a block that appears as part of the nether portal which teleports the player into and out of the Nether.

Obtaining
The nether portal block cannot be obtained as an item. It can be placed using the command, or by building nether portals.

Usage
Portal blocks can only exist within a nether portal structure. When the block is updated and detects it is not part of such a structure, it will remove itself.

Nether portal blocks can be used to teleport into and out of the Nether. When a player in the Overworld or the Nether stands in a nether portal block for 4 seconds, the player is taken to the other dimension. The player can step out of a portal before it completes its animation to abort the teleport. However, in Creative there is no wait time—the player will immediately transfer between dimensions. If there is already an active portal within range (about 128 blocks) in the other world, the player will appear in that portal. Otherwise, a portal will be created at or near the corresponding coordinates. If a single portal block is placed using commands, it can still be used to travel to the Nether.

Nether portal blocks make distinctive sounds of whimpering and cries, and emit purple particles resembling snowflakes (the same purple particles are produced by endermen, endermites, ender pearls, and the ender chest). Portal blocks emit light of level 11, rather dimmer than a torch and not quite sufficient to prevent mob spawning on top of a freestanding portal.

Much like water or lava, portal blocks cannot be broken (or even targeted) by tools except in Creative. However, portal blocks can be destroyed by explosions (even weak ones) and can be replaced by placing water. If any portal block is destroyed, the whole portal is deactivated as adjacent portal blocks are updated and detect that the portal structure is no longer complete.

Portal blocks cannot be moved by pistons, nor can a piston push a block into a portal.