Fragments of the Tagish Lake[1] meteorite landed upon the Earth on January 18, 2000, at 16:43 UT (08:43 local time in Yukon) after a large meteoroid exploded in the upper atmosphere at altitudes of 50–30 kilometres (31–19 mi) with an estimated total energy release of about 1.7 kilotons of TNT.

Following the reported sighting of a fireball in southern Yukon and northern British Columbia, Canada, more than 500 fragments of the meteorite were collected from the lake's frozen surface.

The pieces of the Tagish Lake meteorite are dark grey to almost black in color with small light-colored inclusions, and a maximum size of ~2.3 kg.

Fragments of the fresh, "pristine" Tagish Lake meteorite totaling more than 850 g are currently held in the collections at the Royal Ontario Museum and the University of Alberta.

Analyses have shown that Tagish Lake fragments are of a primitive type, containing unchanged stellar dust granules that may have been part of the cloud of material that created the Solar System and Sun.

Based on eyewitness accounts of the fireball caused by the incoming meteor and on the calibrated photographs of the track which it had left behind and which was visible for about half an hour, scientists have managed to calculate the orbit it followed before it impacted with Earth.

there are only eleven meteorite falls with accurately determined pre-entry orbits, based on photographs or video recordings of the fireballs themselves taken from two or more different angles.

The double, and not the expected single, plume formation of debris, as seen in video and photographs of the 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor dust trail and believed by Peter Brown to have coincided near the primary airburst location, was also pictured following the Tagish Lake fireball,[14] and according to Brown, likely indicates where rising air quickly flowed into the center of the trail, essentially in the same manner as a moving 3D version of a mushroom cloud.