Figure 5: Shallow post-impact temperature as a function of the target radius R.
From: Cosmochemical fractionation by collisional erosion during the Earth’s accretion
Different pre-impact temperatures are illustrated (from T0=500 to 2,000 K). We consider that (i) surface gravity is equal to g=4/3 π G ρ R (G is the gravitational constant and ρ is the density of the target), (ii) kinetic energy of the impactor is controlled by the escape velocity of the impacted body (that is, vimpactor=√(2gR)), (iii) the impactor and impacted body have the same densities, and (iv) only 30% of the incoming kinetic energy is converted into heat.
