A look at 3200 Phaethon: A big, bizarre, blue asteroid we plan to visit
https://www.cnet.com/news/a-look-at-3200-phaethon-a-big-bizarre-blue-asteroid-we-plan-to-visit/
"It's a weird blue asteroid that created the Geminids and gets so hot that metals on the surface turn to goo," Teddy Kareta, a graduate student at the University of Arizona, told reporters Tuesday. He was speaking at theĀ 50th annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society Division for Planetary SciencesĀ in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Kareta led an international team of researchers who investigated the odd asteroid, which sometimes behaves like a comet by releasing a dusty tail when it passes close to the sun, earning it the nickname the "rock comet." He says they found it to be even more enigmatic than expected.