Impact cratering shapes planetary surfaces across the solar system, revealing insights into planetary structure and history. However, Earth’s preserved impact record is sparse, and studying extraterrestrial craters is challenging. This seminar examines the behaviour of geological materials under the extreme conditions of impact events and demonstrates why understanding rock and mineral responses to such conditions is critical for understanding the impact process and its consequences. By combining geological observations, experiments and numerical impact simulations, we gain a deeper understanding of planetary impact processes, with implications for interpreting impact structures on Earth and across the Solar System.