asteroid Phaethon tagged posts

The asteroid that causes the Geminid shooting star swarm has also puzzled researchers with its comet-like tail. The infrared spectrum of rare meteorites helped to determine the composition of the asteroid.

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 during its orbit.

However, the tails of comets are usually formed by vaporizing ice and carbon dioxide, which cannot explain ...

The movement of asteroid Phaethon imaged on Dec. 25, 2010 with the 37 cm F14 Cassegrain telescope of Winer Observatory, Sonoita (MPC 857) by Marco Langbroek. The image is a stack of 4 images of 150s exposure each, spaced 15 minutes apart. Image credit: Marco Langbroek

Discovered in 1983, the near-Earth asteroid Phaethon is an intriguing object, primarily due to its unusual orbit. Recently, an international team has conducted a detailed study of this unique space rock, deriving a shape model that characterizes the orbit, spin state, and thermophysical parameters of the asteroid.

Phaethon is an Apollo asteroid, though it is also suspected to be a member of the Pallas family of asteroids. It approaches the sun more closely than any other named asteroid—its perihelion is only 0...