(meteorobs) Are Meteor Showers Misunderstood?
Skywayinc at aol.com
Skywayinc at aol.com
Fri Jun 17 13:02:25 EDT 2005
In a message dated 6/17/05 12:50:40 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
peter at brunone.com writes:
<< I thought 3200 Phaeton was an asteroid, not a comet (and this is
what made the Geminids unique).
>>
Most astronomy texts state that the Geminids stand apart from the other
meteor showers in that they seem to have been spawned not by a comet, but by
3200 Phaeton, an Earth-crossing asteroid. Then again, the Geminids may be comet
debris after all, for some astronomers consider Phaeton to really be the dead
nucleus of a burned-out comet that somehow got trapped into an unusually
tight orbit.
-- joe rao
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