Where light comes from

Light originates as single photons, or particle/waves having zero mass, no electric charge, and an indefinite lifetime. Photons are emitted by electrons as they lose orbital energy around their atom. The expendable orbital energy is transferred to the electron either when it is bumped by an atom or when it is struck by another photon. Before being excited to a highter electron shell, the electron is in the lowest possible shell, or ground state.

The ground state is forced by the attraction between the electron and the proton(s) in the nucleus.

When an electron is excited to a higher electron shell, it almost immediately seeks the ground state.

The electron sheds the excess orbital energy as a photon with energy equal to the difference of the orbital energies an electron would have in the two electron shells.

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