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Concept
Black-body radiation
Summary
Black-body radiation is the thermal electromagnetic radiation within, or surrounding, a body in thermodynamic equilibrium with its environment, emitted by a black body (an idealized opaque, non-reflective body). It has a specific, continuous spectrum of wavelengths, inversely related to intensity, that depend only on the body's temperature, which is assumed, for the sake of calculations and theory, to be uniform and constant.
A perfectly insulated enclosure which is in thermal equilibrium internally contains blackbody radiation, and will emit it through a hole made in its wall, provided the hole is small enough to have a negligible effect upon the equilibrium.
The thermal radiation spontaneously emitted by many ordinary objects can be approximated as blackbody radiation.
Of particular importance, although planets and stars (including the Earth and Sun) are neither in thermal equilibrium with their surroundings nor perfect black bodies, blackbody radiation is still a good first approximation for the energy they emit. The sun's radiation, after being filtered by the earth's atmosphere, thus characterises "daylight", which humans (also most other animals) have evolved to use for vision.
A black body at room temperature () radiates mostly in the infrared spectrum, which cannot be perceived by the human eye, but can be sensed by some reptiles. As the object increases in temperature to about , the emission spectrum gets stronger and extends into the human visual range, and the object appears dull red. As its temperature increases further, it emits more and more orange, yellow, green, and blue light (and ultimately beyond violet, ultraviolet).
Tungsten filament lights have a continuous black body spectrum with a cooler colour temperature, around , which also emits considerable energy in the infrared range. Modern-day fluorescent and LED lights, which are more efficient, do not have a continuous black body emission spectrum, rather emitting directly, or using combinations of phosphors that emit multiple narrow spectrums.
Official source
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