Light can be spread out into a rainbow of colors known as a spectrum. A spectrum can be displayed as a picture or on a graph of brightness vs. wavelength (color). Different sources of light have different spectra because they have different properties, such as composition and temperature. Light from a fluorescent bulb looks slightly different from sunlight because it is made of a different combination of colors. The Sun emits a nearly continuous spectrum (a complete rainbow), while fluorescent bulbs emit some colors of the rainbow and not others.
Credits
Illustration
NASA, ESA, Leah Hustak (STScI)
