Driving down the road yesterday they were repairing some electrical lines and I guess one of them sparked and it left a trail of blue sparks on the ground. But when I hook up a battery and short it with a wire sparks appear an orangish-yellow color.
Anyone know why?
In: Engineering
As discussed in several comments in this thread, this is due to ionization of the molecules (in particular, nitrogen) in the air whose emission spectra have peaks in the blue or violet.
In other gases, ionization leads to different colored emission – this video shows this perfectly using a Tesla coil.
[Gases near a Tesla Coil](https://www.reddit.com/r/blackmagicfuckery/comments/b0ozcn/gases_near_a_tesla_coil/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
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