laser experiment

So I got bored and I got out my laser pointers to play with. My favorite is the purple uv laser. I was pointing it at the sky and I noticed that if you look directly down the beam it is visible. Then I noticed something strange.  My breath was causing the light to be even more visible. The visible portion seemed to persist for a second even when I stopped breathing on it.  I thought for a minute it was steam but I'm pretty sure now that was wrong. Today I tried something different. I took a lighter and lit it under the beam. It produced the same effect but only when you struck the flint and lit the gas. It even seems to work with a red laser.

If I was going to guess, it looks like there is gas being trapped in the beam.
I wonder how good that would work in a vacuum.

I call dibs on this idea.#spacex