Earlier this month the skywatchers at the Minor Planet Center at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, excitedly announced the discovery of an odd new asteroid, very close to earth.
They named the asteroid 2018 CN41.
But if they had trained their telescopes on the asteroid to get a closer look, here's what they would have seen:
That's right the mystery asteroid was just Starman driving a cherry red Tesla Roadster: The car Elon Musk launched into space back in 2018.
After discovering their mistake the Minor Planet Center issued an Editorial Notice announcing that they were deleting the asteroid from their database.
The designation 2018 CN41, announced in MPEC 2025-A38 on Jan 2, 2025 UT,is being deleted. The object was reported throught the identifications pipeline as a 3-nighter linkage found in the isolated tracklet file and more tracklets were linked in the ITF, leading to a small object on a heliocentric NEO orbit. The next day it was pointed out the orbit matches an artificial object 2018-017A, Falcon Heavy Upper stage with the Tesla roadster. The designation 2018 CN41 is being deleted and will be listed as omitted.
Apparently, the reporting of artificial objects as asteroids happens quite often. For example the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) stationed about 1 million miles from Earth has made it on the list several times, as well as other obsolete ships, boosters, and spacejunk floating around up there.
The Tesla was reported by Turkish astronomer H. A. Güler, who thought he had found a near-Earth object and not a used car from 2010 with a few million miles on it, though his social media posts show he was a little suspicious.
Güler is able to see the bright side of what he calls "the Tesla incident.
'I'm still sort of disappointed it wasn't a NEO, but it was an interesting experience to say the least,' he said. 'At the very least we managed to filter out some non-minor-planet observations from [the] MPC database.
Of course, Güler has his sights set on even rarer observational feats. In an email, he wrote: 'I'm thinking the holy grail could be a beautiful comet, an interstellar visitor, or an alien spacecraft like in [Arthur C.] Clarke's book Rendezvous with Rama, heh 🙂 None of that might happen, but that won't stop me from dreaming about it.
'Realistically, at this point in time I will settle for anything that's not a car.'
Personally, I think the fact that there's a car floating around in outer space shows how amazing the era we are living in is.
P.S. Now check out our latest video 👇
