1. What Is Lava?: Lava is red-hot, melted rock that erupts from deep underground and flows across the Earth's surface during a volcanic eruption.

2. Magma vs. Lava: It is all about location! Melted rock is called magma when it is safely trapped underground, but the exact same liquid rock becomes lava the moment it bursts out into the open air.

3. Super-Hot Liquid Fire: Lava is mind-bogglingly hot—temperatures usually range from 1,300°F to 2,200°F (700°C to 1,200°C), which is hot enough to melt metal instantly!

4. Glowing in the Dark: Because lava is so intensely hot, it glows with a bright, fiery orange and yellow light, looking like a glowing river of liquid sunshine especially when it flows at night.

5. The Ring of Fire: Most of the world's volcanoes and flowing lava are found along a giant horse-shoe shaped area in the Pacific Ocean called the "Ring of Fire," where many of Earth's tectonic plates crash together.

6. Creating Brand New Land: When hot lava cools and hardens into solid rock, it actually creates brand-new land! Entire islands, like the Big Island of Hawaii, were slowly built up layer by layer from cooled underwater and surface lava.

7. Turning Into Shiny Glass: If lava cools down extremely fast—like when it spills straight into cold ocean water—it doesn't have time to form crystals, so it freezes into a smooth, shiny black volcanic glass called obsidian.