We’ve all blown out birthday candles, but few of us have seen up close what exactly happened to the recently extinguished candle wick.
To help us understand what happens when a candle is extinguished, photographer @Macrofying took this close-up macro image and explained that when a candle is burning, the flame breaks down the hydrocarbon of the candle wax and burns all that carbon into carbon dioxide.
But when the flame goes out, the glowing wick still has enough heat to break down carbon molecules in the wax but not enough heat to burn them into carbon dioxide. Instead, the carbon is released as smoke.
#MacroPhotography #candle #smoke #candlewax #candlewick #hydrocarbon #carbon #carbondioxide