  A Geminid fireball with an absolute magnitude of -13 was observed over the
south of Spain on Dec. 15, 2009. This extraordinarily bright event (the
brightest Geminid ever recorded by our team) was imaged from two meteor
observing stations operated by the SPanish Meteor Network (SPMN). The bolide
exhibited fast and quasi-periodic variations in brightness, a behaviour
typically associated to the rotation of the parent meteoroid. The inferred
tensile strength of this particle was found to be significantly higher that the
typical values obtained for Geminid meteoroids. The fireball penetrated in the
atmosphere till a final height of about 25 km above the ground level and a
non-zero terminal mass was calculated at the ending point of the luminous
trajectory. In this way, the observational evidence points to the existence of
a population of meteoroids in the higher end of the Geminid mass distribution
capable of producing meteorites. From the relative chemical abundances inferred
from the emission spectrum of this bolide we conclude that the Geminid-forming
materials are similar to some primitive carbonaceous chondrite groups. Then, we
conclude that in meteorite collections from cold deserts, capable to preserve
meteorites of few tens of grams, some rare groups of carbonaceous chondrites
could be coming from the Geminid parent body: (3200) Phaeton.
