Alderaan and the Leidenfrost Effect?

[Phil Skayhan]

Basically I was looking for a way to explain the secondary explosion during the destruction of Alderaan. I don't have a full grasp of the concept so please bear with me.

The Leidenfrost effect occurs when a liquid comes into contact with a surface that is at a temperature much greater than its boiling point, and it causes the liquid to vaporize at such a rate that it forms a layer of insulating vapor between it and the surface.

Could this be what we're seeing at Alderaan? The superlaser vaporizes a portion of the planet creating a thermal boundary (correct term?) with less conductivity that prevented the far side of the planet from reaching the same energy level as the portion of the planet that initially exploded. Then after the SL ceases, the vapor bubble cools and the "bubble" collapses allowing the energy to flow more readily between the two resulting in the secondary explosion

The first problem I see is: would there be enough mass in the vapor to cause the second explosion once the vapor layer collapsed?

I know I'm not explaining this very well and I don't really know how or even if this can be applied but I thought "What the hell put it out there." Maybe someone can make sense of my rambling.

Have at it.

[Winston Blake]

One problem i see is that even if this could happen, the second explosion would be much smaller than the first (we can't expect the 'collapsing bubble' to have comparable energy to the superlaser beam itself).

Also, you would think that the intense radiant heat would easily cross any kind of boundary like that.