(meteorobs) Geminids (Meteorobs)

[George Gliba]

On Fri, Aug 20, 2004 at 11:08:31AM -0400, Lewis J. Gramer wrote:

[many good things deleted]

> That is - assuming Phaeton isn't just a "burned out comet", as some have
> suggested! But if that were so, then *when* did it "burn out", and how
> did it eject dust up until that time? Obviously, you might expect that
> "predicting the Geminids" could be trickier than it sounds at first! :>

The density of the Geminids is about 3g/cc while most other major meteor
showers is near 1g/cc. Of course, the exhaust fluff from a comet isn't
the density of the main body of a comet; so maybe Phaeton, as other spent
comets and some asteroids, has meteoroid particles around them from numerous 
micro-impacts, which is why some asteroids are associated with meteor showers.
Interestingly, the density of Geminid meteors is similar to the density of
the CM2 meteorites.

GWG