3200 Phaethon

The Fall of Phaëthon on a Roman sarcophagus
 (Hermitage Museum - Wikimedia)

This week will have the best nights for watching the Geminid meteor showers which appear to come from the constellation Gemini, but these showers are caused by the celestial object 3200 Phaethon, which is an asteroid.

That is unusual and this is one of the only major meteor showers not originating from a comet. This asteroid has an orbit that brings it closer to the Sun than any other named asteroid. And that association with the Sun is how the asteroid got its name.

The first asteroids to be discovered were named for characters from classical mythology, but names are no longer restricted strictly to mythological characters.

Phaethon was the Ancient Greek name for the planet Jupiter, a planet whose motions and cycles were observed by the ancients and often used in poetry and myth.

In mythology, Phaethon's father was the sun god Helios who granted his son's wish to drive the sun chariot for a day.  Phaethon was unable to control the horses. To prevent the chariot from hitting and destroying Earth, Zeus knocked it out of the sky with a thunderbolt. Phaethon fell to earth and was killed.

These radar images of near-Earth asteroid 3200 Phaethon were generated by astronomers at the National Science Foundation's Arecibo Observatory on Dec. 17, 2017. Observations of Phaethon were conducted from Dec.15 through 19, 2017, at the time of its closest approaching December 16 when it was about 6.4 million miles or 10.3 million kilometers away, or about 27 times the distance from Earth to the moon. The encounter is the closest the asteroid will come to Earth until 2093.

Source: https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA22185