We present the identification and preliminary analysis of a dust trail following the orbit of ( 3200 ) Phaethon as seen in white light images recorded by the Wide-field Imager for Parker Solar Probe ( WISPR ) instrument on the NASA Parker Solar Probe ( PSP ) mission .
During PSP ’ s first solar encounter in November 2018 , a dust trail following Phaethon ’ s orbit was visible for several days and crossing two fields of view .
Preliminary analyses indicate this trail to have a visual magnitude of 15.8 \pm 0.3 per pixel and a surface brightness of 25.0 mag arcsec ^ { -2 } as seen by PSP /WISPR from a distance of \sim 0.2 au from the trail .
We estimate the total mass of the stream to be \sim ( 0.4 - 1.3 ) { \times } 10 ^ { 12 } kg , which is consistent with , though slightly underestimates , the assumed mass of the Geminid stream but is far larger than the current dust production of Phaethon could support .
Our results imply that we are observing a natural clustering of at least some portion of the Geminid meteor stream through its perihelion , as opposed to dust produced more recently from perihelion activity of Phaethon .