Explore Phaethon, the Weird Blue Rock That Turns Metal Into Goo

A weird, blue rock known as 3200 Phaethon, or more commonly Phaethon, got pretty close to Earth last year. That gave scientists a unique opportunity to study it up close — and they found that this blue asteroid (that acts like a comet) is even stranger than they expected. “It’s a weird blue asteroid that created the Geminids and gets so hot that metals on the surface turn to goo,” Theodore Kareta, a graduate researcher at the University of Arizona, said about Phaethon at