On January 18, 2000 a large meteoroid exploded in the upper atmosphere at an altitude of between 50 and 30 kilometers above Earth with an estimated energy release of about 1.7 kilotons.

Because so many people witnessed the fireball above the Yukon Territory and gathered its fragments and because it landed on a frozen lake in the middle of winter, the Tagish Lake Meteorite has become the world’s most well-preserved meteorite. Its fragments were rich in carbon and contained an assortment of amino acids.

The passage of the fireball and the high-altitude explosion set off a wide array of satellite sensors as well as seismographs.Tagish Lake meteorite