Theories

The Xenomorph has shown a resistant and absolutely strong epidermis in many occasions. Lt. Ripley indicates that an attack at the abdomen of a Xenomorph, seemed to produce more a lesion than a disabling wound. Perhaps the most frightening example of the strength of the epidermis comes from Morse, the sole survivor of the incident in Fiorina 161: after releasing various hundreds tons of melted component over the Xenomorph, it was still living buried under the liquid metal. After a period of near 30 seconds the Xenomorph leaps out of the motionless melted hole exceptionally active and aware of his outskirts. The creature immediately begins to the search for Lt. Ripley. Also the body is violently thrown against the stairs, leaving you in doubt if its reaction is due to the pain or simply uncontrolled rage. The common belief is that it was a reaction to the pain due to the extreme heat. It isn't clear if the Alien would die after hours of exposition to the heat or if it would survive and remove the damaged exo-skeleton. One thing is clear: the heat of the melted component didn't immediately kill the Alien.

As a framework of reference: Presently there isn't any kind of technology (inanimate or living) that could produce something to bear the heat of melted iron for the amount of time the Xenomorph had.

Nevertheless the epidermis of a Xenomorph, isn't entirely immune: It has been registered that it cannot bear the impact of: M40 grenades, a round of M309 10mm x 24 (round standard of the rifle of the pulse of M41A), or 10m m x 28 redondean (round standard of the elegant weapon M56). The exoskeleton, nevertheless, will bear the fire of the standard sidearm of the M4A3 9mm edition to an action radio of approximately 4 inches.

The initial article refers to the molten metal as being iron. Both dialog and visual evidence contradicts this.

The metal was refered to as "tons of hot lead." Furthermore, iron incandeses while in its liquid state.

Lead will melt at 327 degrees C, about 3 times the boiling temperature of water. A human could withstand those temperatures for perhaps half the indicated time. They wouldn't live very long afterward but that temperature for the indicated time would not be instantly fatal.


The hydrostatic pressures on the other hand speak volumes about the strength of the alien's exoskeleton

It's quite a waste of braincells to speculate what an Alien can or cannot withstand to according to a movie that stays "away" from the origins.
If you can kill an Alien with a flame thrower (shown on second movie and nearly all games) then you can kill it even easier with tons or heated metal. It simply wasn't enough to do so in the third movie, because the director thought it would be "cool".

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