Latest Phaethon Stories

The best meteor shower of the year peaks this week on Dec. 13th and 14th."It's the Geminid meteor shower," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office in Huntsville, Alabama. "Start watching on Wednesday evening, Dec. 13th, around 9 p.m. local time," he advises. "The display will start small but grow in intensity as the night wears on. By Thursday morning, Dec. 14th, people in dark, rural areas could see one or two meteors every minute."The source of...

The best meteor shower of 2004 peaks on Dec. 13th.Science@NASA -- Make hot cocoa. Bundle up. Tell your friends: the best meteor shower of 2004 is about to peak on a long cold December night. It's the Geminids. The best time to look is Monday night, Dec. 13th. Sky watchers who stay outside for a few hours around midnight can expect to see dozens to hundreds of "shooting stars." The source of the shower is asteroid 3200 Phaethon. There's a cloud of dust trailing the asteroid and Earth...