3200 Phaethon
Skims within 0.14 AU of the Sun and sheds the dust that becomes the Geminid meteors.
Where it is right now
3200 Phaethon is in Gemini, 1.74 AU away, magnitude 16.3.
Computed for 2 August 2026, 17:00 UTC, and recomputed at least hourly. This page is cached, so treat the line above as accurate to the hour rather than to the second. The map shows the live position.
Position from a Kepler propagation of the published elements below, accurate to about an arcminute.
Facts
Every line carries the source it came from.
- Diameter
- 6.2 kmSource: NASA/JPL Small-Body Database
- Orbital period
- 1.4 yearsSource: NASA/JPL Small-Body Database
- Distance from the Sun
- 1.271 AU on averageSource: NASA/JPL Small-Body Database
- Orbit shape
- eccentricity 0.890, inclined 22.3 degrees to the eclipticSource: NASA/JPL Small-Body Database
- Class
- Near-earth asteroid (apollo group)Source: NASA/JPL Small-Body Database
- Discovered
- 1983-Oct-11 by IRASSource: NASA/JPL Small-Body Database
Physical size
- Mean radius
- 3.1 km
- Diameter
- 6.3 km across
- Absolute magnitude H
- 14.38
Orbit
Elements are heliocentric, referred to the J2000.0 ecliptic.
- Average distance from the Sun
- 1.271 AU (190.2 million km)
- Closest and furthest
- 0.140 AU (20.99 million km) to 2.403 AU (359.4 million km)
- Eccentricity
- 0.8897, highly elongated
- Inclination to the ecliptic
- 22.31 degrees
- Orbital period
- 523.7 days
- Longitude of ascending node
- 265.10 degrees
- Argument of periapsis
- 322.30 degrees
- Mean anomaly at J2000.0
- 143.71 degrees
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Catalog id phaethon. 3,172 objects on the map, of which 171 are hand-authored with sourced facts.