‘New asteroid’ turns out to be Tesla car shot to space in 2018

A car shot into space by Elon Musk’s SpaceX seven years ago was briefly mistaken for a new asteroid, astronomers say.

Earlier this month, the discovery of the object was announced by the Minor Planet Center at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

It was first spotted by an amateur astronomer in Turkey, who submitted it to professional astronomers.

They named it 2018 CN41 and classified it as a Near-Earth Object (NEO) because it was seen orbiting within 150,000 miles of our planet – closer than the Moon.

NEOs are typically flagged as worthy of closer monitoring because of their potential to one day crash into Earth.

But less than 17 hours after the announcement, the Minor Planet Center said it was deleting 2018 CN41 from its records.

A member of their team had ‘pointed out the orbit matches an artificial object 2018-017A’ already known to scientists.

That object is none other than a Tesla Roadster – which had been owned and driven by Musk – attached to the upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.

The rocket launched into orbit on February 6, 2018, as part of a publicity stunt while the Falcon Heavy was being tested.

Musk’s old car was fitted with a mannequin wearing a white spacesuit sitting in the driver’s seat named Starman.

Astronomers have since complained that the error highlights the risks of having a growing number of untracked objects launched into space.

Astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell told Astronomy magazine: ‘Worst case, you spend a billion launching a space probe to study an asteroid and only realize it’s not an asteroid when you get there.’

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