An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics

A → meteor shower that occurs in the first half of December, with its → radiant in the → constellation → Gemini. Geminids are pieces of debris from the extinct comet → 3200 Phaethon. The shower appears when Earth runs into a stream of the debris every year in mid-December, causing → meteors to fly from that constellation.

See also: → Gemini + → -ids.