About halfway between the comparatively sedate Memorial Day and Labor Day holidays, you can't miss the pyrotechnical gloriousness that is Fourth of July. Come nightfall, thousands of fireworks displays will boom brightly across the country, celebrating America's birthday.
So how do these festive fireworks work? A firework, essentially, is a casing filled with explosives and combustible, colorful pellets called stars. These stars are the individual "dots" that glow in the sky. The most common type of firework, and the ones you'll likely see this year wherever you watch a civic firework event, is called an aerial shell.
To read the original article: Science of Summer: How Do Fireworks Work? | LiveScience
