Home Science The Geminid meteors may be 10 times older than we thought, simulations of oddball asteroid Phaethon suggest

The Geminid meteors may be 10 times older than we thought, simulations of oddball asteroid Phaethon suggest

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The Geminid meteors may be 10 times older than we thought, simulations of oddball asteroid Phaethon suggest

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The rocks making up the Geminid meteor shower that occurs towards the end of every year may have been born through a chaotic event 18,000 years ago, a new study suggests — potentially making the meteoroids about 10 times older than previously estimated.

The Geminid shower is named after the constellation Gemini —  the position in the sky from which the meteors seem to appear. But the meteors actually originate from 3200 Phaethon, a bizarre blue asteroid that swings along a watermelon-shaped orbit to come within just 0.14 astronomical units from the sun, or about one-10th the distance between Earth and the sun. At this point in its orbit, the 3.2-mile-wide (5.1 kilometers) Phaethon acquires a peculiar, comet-like tail.

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