ELI5: What is Lava?

Imagine you're cooking a really, really hot chocolate fudge cake, but instead of chocolate, it's made of rocks deep inside the Earth.

That "cake" is so hot it's melted! That melted rock is called magma. It's like a super-hot, gooey, rocky soup.

Now, imagine your cake is so big it explodes out of the oven (the Earth!). When that hot, melted rock (magma) comes out of the Earth, from a volcano, it's then called lava.

So, lava is just magma that's outside the Earth.

Think of it like this:

• Magma is like melted chocolate inside the mixing bowl (the Earth).
• Lava is like melted chocolate that's spilled out onto your counter (the Earth's surface).

• Lava is very, very hot (much hotter than your oven!).
• It can burn anything it touches.
• When lava cools down, it turns back into solid rock. This rock can be used to build things, just like ordinary rocks!