The meteorite is made of a rare type of chondrite that usually does not reach the ground after it enters the Earth's atmosphere. With the help of a local resident, scientists have recovered pieces of the largest meteorite ever to land in Canada. The fragments were found in a remote area near the British Columbia - Yukon border. An analysis of the space rock shows it is composed of a very rare material, which makes it one of the most significant meteorite finds ever. The fragments were analyzed at NASA's Johnson Space Center and showed that the meteorite is a type of carbonaceous chondrite - an organically rich, charcoal class of meteorites that contains materials such as amino acids, hydrocarbons and forms resembling microscopic fossils.
Carbonaceous chondrites are a rare find on Earth because they are very fragile.
And they're so fragile that once they get wet they just turn into a pile of clay. Luckily, the meteorites were encased in ice, where they froze and stayed intact. The meteor fell on the morning of January 18, 2000. A week later, a nearby resident, Jim Brook, found the first of the fragments while he was driving across the ice of Tagish Lake. Since he has a background in geology, Brook knew what he was looking at.