Impact processes are responsible for building and shaping planets and play an important role in the evolution of the chemical and isotopic compositions of Earth and other rocky bodies in the Solar System. This talk presents new insights into impacts processes from ultra-high temperature experiments in an aerodynamic levitation laser furnace. The results of these experiments lead to a better understanding of past impacts on Earth by constraining temperature-time conditions of explosive impact plumes and addressing how impact-induced melt vaporization leads to stable isotope fractionation of impact products.