Many familiar meteors are very old, such as Perseus and Leo. But the Gemini meteor group is very young, it only appeared in the middle of19th century, and at the beginning, the flow was very low, with 10-20 meteors per hour. Since then, its flow has increased every year and it has become the main meteor group every year. In 1998, the observed Gemini meteor swarm reached ZHR= 140 per hour. Observers with good observation conditions can see more meteors at most.

Since 1862, people have been looking for Gemini's mother comet. It was not until 1983 that the satellite discovered that it was not a comet, but a rocky asteroid with the same orbit. The number is 3200 phaeton. This asteroid has a period of 1.4 years and a very flat orbit of 0. 15 astronomical unit.

1997 12 when it passes near the earth, the distance is only 0.3 1 astronomical unit. People have been debating whether Phaeton is an asteroid or a comet. Its spectrum looks like a rocky asteroid, but its orbit looks like a comet. When it passed the sun, it had no tail, but it produced fragments and formed a meteor shower. By analyzing the photos of Gemini fireballs, scientists estimate that the density of Gemini meteors is 1-2m/cc, which is 3 gm/cc lower than that of standard asteroids, but several times higher than that of comets. Some people think that Phaeton is a depleted or dormant comet with thick interplanetary dust on its outer surface. So it doesn't have the appearance of an asteroid, but it has the core of a comet.