Impact induced erosion of hot and dense atmospheres

Previous investigations of impact-induced atmospheric erosion considered mainly crater-forming impacts. Simple estimates show that in dense primary planetary atmospheres, considerable erosion could be induced by aerial bursts resulting from impacts of 1–10 km sized projectiles. Numerical simulations of cometary and asteroidal impacts (striking unmodified and crater-forming, impacting as fragmented meteorites, or causing aerial bursts) into dense (200 bar) atmospheres of different temperatures have been performed to obtain the amount of atmospheric erosion. The results have been approximated by simple analytical formulae.