most of our short-period meteor showers are the product of rare disintegrations, when large chunks break off a mostly dormant comet. examples are the quadrantids and geminids. they originated from a breakup of asteroid-like objects, 2003 eh1 and 3200 phaethon, respectively, about 500 and 1000 years ago. the fragments tend to fall apart quickly into dust, sand, and pebbles, and spread out along the orbit of the comet to form a dense meteoroid stream, which later moves into earth's path.