How can photons emit from a chemical reaction in the dark?

Question

if photons are exploding away from a reaction between atoms (creating light), then were these photons created by the reaction, activated, or what?

could this mean that photons are everywhere, but only seen at the speed of light?

Answer 1

Photons are often created by chemical reactions, in the dark.

One example is the charteristic called BIOLUMINESCENCE.  Like fireflies.  but there are also certain deep see creatures that live in the dark yet produce light, and there are cave-dwelling animals that live in the dark and produce light.

Photons have to be produced by something, and that something is usually the release of energy from an atom, most often due to an electron dropping from a high-energy orbit to a low-energy orbit.  This releases energy that is most often experienced as light.

Answer 2

If the reaction is releasing chemical energy, some of that energy could be turned into photons. The photons need not be present beforehand, they can easily be created by the quantum jumping of excited electrons.

Photons are not everywhere, and they always travel at the speed of light.

Answer 3

Yes, the photons were created in the reaction.

could this mean that photons are everywhere, but only seen at the speed of light?

I have no idea what you mean by this.  Photons travel at light speed.  That's the only way a massless particle exists.

Answer 4

Every time an electron shifts from one orbital to another, there is energy involved, and that energy is in the form of photon. Most chemical reactions would have electrons jumping from orbitals to orbitals of a fairly low difference of energy, hence the photons would be infrared. But make them jump between different enough levels and you will get visible light, which is what happens when you are burning a match, for instance. Fire is simply a violent enough chemical reaction.

Photons are energy, pure energy. They are created and absorbed all the time.