Unfortunately, Phaethon dies and his burning body lands in the Eridanus river, where his sisters mourn him. Nowadays, Phaethon's story is used to explain why there are uninhabitable lands, like ...

The space rock, known as 3200 Phaethon, is around 3.4 miles (5.4 kilometers) wide, and its orbit through the solar system takes it closer to the sun than any other named asteroid, reaching a ...

Phaethon’s sodium tail adds even more mystery to this strange object. The asteroid was discovered in 1983 and named after the son of the Greek Sun god Helios for its close proximity to the star.

As Phaethon rotates, which takes just under four hours, day turns to night and the subsurface cools. Some of the trapped gases are able to “back-react” to form a new generation of compounds.

The reliable shower produces bright meteors associated with the asteroid Phaethon, a strange blue rock that acts like a comet. You may like Lyrid meteor shower 2025: When, where & how to see it ...

Asteroid 3200 Phaethon, a space oddity, is even stranger than astronomers thought, NASA researchers said Tuesday. The asteroid acts like a comet and astronomers had thought its tail was made of ...

This space oddity has long puzzled scientists for its peculiar non-asteroid-like behaviors. Researchers have now uncovered another curious characteristic of 3200 Phaethon, this time with its ...

After Phaethon’s discovery, astronomer Fred Whipple realized that the asteroid and the Geminid meteor shower stream had nearly identical orbits, and he made a connection between the two.

Every year, the Geminid meteor shower peaks in mid-December and is regarded as one of the best and most consistent meteor showers, according to NASA.. The Geminids are active from Nov. 19 to Dec ...

We have known for a while that asteroid 3200 Phaethon acts like a comet. It brightens and forms a tail when it's near the Sun, and it is the source of the annual Geminid meteor shower, even though ...

Asteroid Phaethon, which is five kilometers in diameter, has been puzzling researchers for a long time. A comet-like tail is visible for a few days when the asteroid passes closest to the Sun ...