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Geminids

Today I learned the the Geminids1 are one of two sets of meteor showers not originating from a comet. They were discovered to be originating from the Phaethon2 asteroid in 1983, which is one of the more recent discoveries.

I got going before sunrise yesterday and because I usually start my mornings off taking our dog out, I caught a couple shooting stars in the sky so I stood out in the yard for a while watching them. A quick check of the internet confirmed the Geminid meteor shower peaked yesterday. I took two semesters of astronomy in college so I like to play amateur every so often.

There are 112 established meteor showers3. The main difference between an asteroid and a comet is that asteroids are made of rock and comets are made of ice and dust4,5 Asteroids are bigger with the largest known havinga a 600 miles diameter. An asteroid impact with earth is what likely cased the last mass extinction event. But no worries, the astronomers are on it. The next known closest chance occurs in 2095 when there is a 10% chance Asteroid 2010 RF126 will impact us. It's not a PHO ( potentially hazardous object)... the first known of those is in 2880 where Asteroid 1950 DA7 has a 0.005% of colliding with Earth. Don't fret 😂, NASA has a spacecraft that has already proven it can crash into an asteroid and alter it's orbit. In 2021, the Double Steroid Redirection Text ( DART )8 knocked Dimorphos off it's orbit.

I can't help but to think about John Malkovich and Steve Carell singing Kokomo in Space Force9. I'm just glad I happened upon the shower because not knowing makes it more fun. It's just something inspiring to be reminded of how small we are spiraling through space and how much there is to know.

Footnotes​

  1. Geminids - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geminids ↩

  2. 3200 Phaethon - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3200_Phaethon ↩

  3. List of meteor showers - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_meteor_showers ↩

  4. Comet - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet ↩

  5. Asteroid - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid ↩

  6. 2010 RF12 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_RF12 ↩

  7. (29075) 1950 DA - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/(29075)_1950_DA ↩

  8. DART - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Asteroid_Redirection_Test ↩

  9. Space Force - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Force_(TV_series) ↩