While cooking pasta, some of the salted water spills onto the gas burner.

Question

The gas flame momentarily changes to a bright orange color. Explain what happened.

Answer 1

Salted water has sodium chloride, NaCl. The color of Na ion in a flame is yellow (sometimes confused with orange). So assuming the bright orange color mentioned in the question is actually yellow, the explanation is that it is the presence of sodium. The heat from the stove excites the electrons in the sodium atom, moving them to a higher energy level. As they they return to the ground state, they emit energy in the form of light. Each element has a characteristic color. Yellow is the characteristic color of sodium.