Astronomers Mistake Tesla Roadster for New Asteroid in Orbit

In a curious twist of fate, astronomers from the Minor Planet Center at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics recently confused Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster, launched into space in 2018, with a newly discovered asteroid designated 2018 CN41. The mix-up occurred earlier this month when the object was logged, but was retracted a day later once it was confirmed to be the Roadster, now recognized as an artificial object.

The center announced on its website that 2018 CN41's registry was deleted after it was pointed out that the object’s orbit matched the trajectory of the Falcon Heavy’s upper stage, which carried the Roadster. The car was launched on February 6, 2018, as a part of the Falcon Heavy’s maiden flight and was initially expected to take an elliptical orbit beyond Mars, but evidence suggests it may have traveled further into the asteroid belt.

At the time of the discovery, 2018 CN41 was located less than 150,000 miles from Earth, a distance closer than the moon’s average orbit. Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the center, emphasized the challenges posed by untracked objects in space, suggesting that serious implications could arise if exploratory missions are conducted to study objects later found not to be asteroids.

As this amusing incident highlights, the transition from identifying natural celestial bodies to recognizing human-made objects poses ongoing challenges for astronomers.