3200 Phaethon 3200 Phaethon 3200 Phaethon ( , sometimes incorrectly spelled Phaeton), provisional designation , is an Apollo asteroid with an orbit that brings it closer to the Sun than any other named asteroid (though there are numerous unnamed asteroids with smaller perihelia, such as ). For this reason, it was named after the Greek myth of Phaëthon, son of the sun god Helios. It is in diameter and is the parent body of the Geminids meteor shower of mid-December. With an observation arc of 30+ years, it has a very well determined orbit. The 2017 Earth approach distance of about 10
The Dean's December The Dean's December The Dean's December is a 1982 novel by the American author Saul Bellow. The first novel Bellow published after winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976, it is set in Chicago and Bucharest. The book's main character, Albert Corde, a meditative academic who faces a crisis, accompanies his Romanian-born astrophysicist wife to her Communist-ruled native country, where they deal with the death of his mother-in-law. This sojourn allows Corde to observe the workings of a totalitarian regime in particular and the Eastern Bloc in general, a perspective which provides him with insight into the human condition.