How does fire emit light (the sun, a candle, a fire, etc.)?

Question

How does fire emit light (the sun, a candle, a fire, etc.)?

In: Physics

Answer 1

The process called fire is exothermic, it heats the chemicals involved. If this hot gas is hot enough, the electrons in the hot gas can shed energy and collapse into a lower energy orbital by creating a photon. If those photons are in the right frequency range, you can see them as light.

The Sun is not a fire. It’s a completely different, nuclear, process. However, it is also exothermic, and it heats the atoms involved up and they generate light for similar reasons.