Origin
Based on eyewitness accounts of the fireball caused by the incoming meteorite 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. Although none of the photographs captured the fireball directly, the fireball path was reconstructed from two calibrated photos taken minutes after the event, giving the entry angle. Eyewitness accounts in the vicinity of Whitehorse, Yukon accurately constrained the ground track azimuth from either side. It was found that the Tagish Lake meteorite had a pre-entry Apollo type orbit that brought it from the outer reaches of the asteroid belt. Currently, 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.
Further study of the reflectance spectrum of the meteorite indicate that it most likely originated from 773 Irmintraud, a D-type asteroid.
Read more about this topic: Tagish Lake (meteorite)
Famous quotes containing the word origin:
“Someone had literally run to earth
In an old cellar hole in a byroad
The origin of all the family there.
Thence they were sprung, so numerous a tribe
That now not all the houses left in town
Made shift to shelter them without the help
Of here and there a tent in grove and orchard.”
—Robert Frost (18741963)
“Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely nil. They give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions that have a certain charm for the weak.... They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account.”
—Oscar Wilde (18541900)
“Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed,a, to me, equally mysterious origin for it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)