Let me introduce Phaethon, a "rock comet" that blurs the definitions between asteroid and comet, and let me tell you why it will be worth paying attention to this fascinating object in the coming ...

For quite a while, an asteroid named Phaethon has presented astronomers with something of a conundrum. When it passes closest to the sun during its orbit, a long tail of material can be seen ...

This illustration depicts asteroid Phaethon being heated by the Sun. The asteroid’s surface gets so hot that sodium inside Phaethon’s rock likely vaporizes and vents into space, causing it to ...

If you buy through a BGR link, we may earn an affiliate commission, helping support our expert product labs. Because its rotational period keeps decreasing – causing the potentially hazardous ...

Europe's Hera mission to the asteroid Dimorphos, which NASA's DART probe hit in September 2022, has arrived at its launch site in Florida ahead of its planned Oct. 7 liftoff. Meet Phaethon ...

The Geminid meteors originate from a rocky asteroid known as 3200 Phaethon. Each year, the Earth passes through a trail of debris left by the asteroid as it orbits around the Sun. When the debris ...

England The Geminid meteors originate from a rocky asteroid known as 3200 Phaethon, and each year, the Earth passes through a trail of debris left by the asteroid as it travels around the Sun.

But, unlike normal meteor showers, 3200 Phaethon is not a comet, but an asteroid. Of the 12 meteor showers that took place this year, only one other came from asteroids, according to American ...

Asteroid 7862 Keikonakamura is named in her honor for her pioneering work on microscopic ... Keiko is a science co-investigator for JAXA’s DESTINY+ (Demonstration and Experiment of Space Technology ...

Phaethon's origin is still debated. According to NASA, the object could be either an extinct comet or a near-Earth asteroid. It's very similar to an asteroid known as 2005 UD, which has led some ...