Do individual photons of light each contain all the colors of the light spectrum or is each single photon a single color?
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Photons, unlike matter, are very easy to create and destroy. Photons get created by just about anything that releases bursts of energy — fire, the sun, TV, lightning, etc. Even people create infrared photons — aka body heat. When it’s created, a photon’s wavelength depends on how much energy went into its creation (and some other factors). The photon is destroyed when it gets absorbed by matter — including, sometimes, your eyeball. Every wavelength corresponds to a color (or as an “invisible color” like ultraviolet or radio wave).
The color of a photon could change if the wavelength of the photon changes. On Earth, this is rare. Most photons you encounter will live a short and simple life as only one color. But if you can mess around with the speed of the photon, you can change its color. The most common example of this is “red shift.” Very distant stars look redder on Earth than they would if we were near the stars, because the expansion of the universe stretches out the wavelength of the photon over very long distances and very long time frames.
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