Flowing lava engulfs a can of Chef Boyardee ravioli

I’ve been to the Kilauea lava field, and you can get very close to hot glowing lava, in cracks in the rocks, very safely (though: I should have had sturdier shoes, I should have arrived longer before sunset so I wouldn’t have to park so far from the trailhead, I should have had sturdy gloves, and I should have mimicked some people I saw, and brought marshmallows and sticks). You’re close enough to touch lava, in perfect safety (the proximity is safe - not the touching!).

But that’s hot glowing cracks in the rocks. An actual flow, I have no idea. I don’t even know if the rangers allow people to get so close on a casual basis!

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yeah, i was expecting a sealed can. : (

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A few years ago I had the good fortune (and good timing) to be able to hike out and visit a slow-moving lava flow on Hawaii’s big island; probably in roughly the same location that this was filmed. I was relatively high-strung about the whole thing, keeping a safe, nervous distance from the glow.

Then, a whole troop of local teenagers showed up in shorts and flip-flops. Many of them had brought along things to feed to the lava, and more than a few squatted down a foot or two from the glowing edge, turned their backs and posed for photos, steam licking at their bare heals.

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Like you need to be bored to want to engulf things in lava.

Its friggin lava! Thats up there with cybernetic dinosaurs, personal jetpacks, and time machines. Except its actually real.

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Which is “hotter”? That depends on a lot of factors.

The specific heat of nickel is 0.444 j/g K, while the specific heat of volcanic basalt is 0.84 j/g K. This means that lava requires almost twice the thermal energy to raise it’s temperature by a single degree Kelvin, and consequently if you have equal masses of both nickel and basalt at the same temperature, the basalt will have almost twice the total thermal energy.

That said, in typical usage “hotter” often refers to straight temperature, rather than actual kinetic energy, so…

The melting point of nickel is 1,455°C, but “white hot” nickel isn’t quite molten. The best numbers I could find in a short span of time suggest that many common metals glow white at around 1,200°C, so let’s work with that.

Lava is a little harder to measure. I used basalt above when dealing with specific heat, but lava is actually comprised of multiple kinds of stones, all with different melting points and slightly different specific heats. However, both granite and basalt, two of the most common types of stone you’ll find in lava, have an upper limit on their melting temperatures of around 1,260°C.

So in terms of straight temperature? Nickel has to be at least around 1,200°C to be “white hot”, but it can also be anywhere up to 1,455°C without melting. In contrast, granite and basalt both are definitely molten past 1,260°C, but how much hotter depends on individual circumstances of the lava in question. In the context of this video, the lava is clearly just on the verge of solidifying, so at best it’s around 1,260°C, but at worst it could be as low as about 1,000°C, from the numbers I found.

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AS WAS I.

There is a subtle difference between “a can of Chef Boyardee ravioli” and “a Chef Boyardee ravioli can.”

This is the latter.

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The can is already open. It’s garbage someon’s tossed away. What I found odd was the block my office put on whatever link is at the top. Extreme!

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No explosion. It wasn’t a sealed can.

A six pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon would be a better choice.

The dangerous part was eating the ravioli first.

Ha ha. Kidding. We eat that junk fearlessly. Hey, was that little flame in the later part coming from the burning metal of the can? That’s kind of neat.

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I was wondering that too. It was like Xzibit put a volcano in my volcano.

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You know, I admire that guy’s persistence, but I haven’t yet seen one of them that didn’t produce an “Oh. So that happened” reaction.

I was thinking the blue flame was the iron of the can reacting with the sulfur.

Same here. Though I’m not convinced there WAS any ravioli in that can at all.

Disappointed as I can be considering it was still a video of something being engulfed by lava.

I have heard that many people leave things to be swallowed by the lava as offerings to Pele - - - with liquor being a favorite. But an empty can? Not a good offering, dude. I picture an “it’s not NICE to fool Mother Nature” moment.

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Have you met LiveLeak?

Have you checked the receiving unit?

Don’t cross the streams!

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Your office blocks lava porn, obviously.

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Don’t feed the lava after midnight!

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