Fireball Events
The Tagish Lake Fireball and Meteorite [18-Jan-2000]
Dust Cloud and Orbit
The singular size of this event resulted in most residents in the area being aware of it. Many of these saw the fireball illuminated only indirectly but were soon outside to take photographs of the dust clouds that were being lit up by morning twilight (the sun was 6° below the local horizon at the time). Photos of the dust cloud are available here.
An orbit was found with the following characteristics:
| a (semimajor axis) | 2.1 ± 0.2 AU |
| e (eccentricity) | 0.57 ± 0.05 |
| q (perihelion distance) | 0.891 ± 0.009 AU |
 (argument
of perihelion) |
222° ± 2° |
 (longitude
of ascending node) |
297.900° ± 0.003° |
| i (inclination) | 1.4° ± 0.9° |
| T (orbital period) | 3.0 ± 0.4 years |
| DT (time since perihelion) | 1072 ± 164 days |
| Q (aphelion distance) | 3.3 ± 0.4 AU |
| Vinf (entry velocity) | 15.8 ± 0.6 km/s |
