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Not electric spark or electric arc, just normal current through gases created by heating the air between cathode and anode as shown in the following video at 1:25.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg0-sLkAssg&t=9s

Is it true that when ions in the air combine to form neutral particles, they emit low-energy light that human eyes cannot detect?

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Neon tubes, as well as more advanced systems, such as Helium-Neon laser are expressly built in order to produce light in gas filled tubes, as a result of kinetic energy of accelarated ions being transferred into electronic exitations of these or other ions, and then re-emitted as light. The classical experiment in thsi respect (although not necessarily with emission of light) is that of Frank-Hertz.

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