Estimates of the temperature of impact craters

Scaling results for the growth and size of impact craters are used to estimate the temperatures and signals in impacts. The flow of plasma from the impactor entrance hole affords an opportunity to observe the thermodynamic state of the luminous material and infer the material properties of the target material. The brightness temperature can be determined from the optical thickness of the radiating layer, which can be solved using two-dimensional similarity solutions discussed earlier. The solutions are not overly sensitive to physical parameters. The peak signals should be readily observable from hundreds of kilometers