Exploding Clays Drive Geminids Sky Show? - Breaking Orbit

The Geminid meteor shower, which peaks each year in December, is one such rule-breaker. Unlike every other known meteor shower, the Geminids are *not* caused by debris left behind from an active comet.
A Geminid meteor cuts across star trails over Georgia in 1985.
—Image courtesy Jimmy Westlake via NASA
(See "Intense Geminid Meteor Shower Peaks Tonight" [2009].)
Instead, scientists have traced the Geminids to an object called 3200 Phaethon. This bizarre body has all the mineral makings of an asteroid, but, like a comet, it left behind a stream of dust that follows along in its orbit.
Thanks to gravitational interactions, this dusty trail regularly crosses Earth's orbit. The particles then burn up in our atmosphere, creating the Geminids meteor shower.
Until recently, the favored view of Phaethon was that it's a dead comet—the rocky core of  ..