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
Sparks are just hot pieces of things (usually metal), and they just happen to be glowing in that temperature range to produce red to white light. “Electricity” is that white/blue/sometimes purpleish color when it arcs because it’s actually turning certain elements in the air into a plasma. The arc is so hot it’s ripping electrons off the atoms, ionizing the gas, and the color light it gives off (called it’s emission spectrum) is that bright blue color.
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None of the answers so far have correctly mentioned the reason why electricity often appears blue. Electrical sparks are a result of ionizing the nitrogen in the air, which glows violet. It’s the same phenomenon that makes neon tubes glow.
The yellow and orange sparks you see are little bits of hot metal flying off whatever the electricity is burning up.
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Sparks are, generally, not actually the electricity itself. Instead, they are small slivers of super-heated metal. The color is dependant on heat.
Now, sometimes it is electricity jumping from the source to a grounded object. In these cases, it will primarily be a flash of white light, but may tint blue depending on atmospheric conditions.
Edit: To clarify, the white and blue is the air super-heating, not electricity itself. You *might* see it go into the reds, but it is less likely.
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