An object in space that astronomers initially identified as an alarmingly close asteroid headed towards Earth turns out to be a Tesla car that Elon Musk launched in 2018 as part of a publicity campaign.
Earlier this month, an amateur astronomer discovered what appeared to be the “asteroid”, designated 2018 CN41, that appeared to be passing very close to Earth.
When it came within less than 240,000 km (150,000 miles) of Earth, which is closer than the orbit of the Moon, the object sparked concerns that it might collide with the planet.
However the Minor Planet Center (MPC), which officially recognises such space rocks, retracted the findings within a day.
The agency confirmed instead that the object in question is a cherry-red Tesla Roadster that Elon Musk launched into space during the first flight of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket.
“The designation 2018 CN41, announced in MPEC 2025-A38 on Jan 2, 2025 UT, is being deleted,” the MPC said in an editorial notice.
“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,” it said.
The car, complete with a mannequin driver named “Starman”, was launched in 2018 as a dummy payload and has been circling the Sun ever since.
The Tesla titan said at the time that the choice to send a car as opposed to the usual block of concrete as a simulation payload was just a bit of fun. “Anything boring is terrible, especially companies, so we decided to send something unusual, something that made us feel,” he said.
The amateur astronomer behind the mysterious object’s initial discovery said he was “ecstatic” when he submitted the identification to the MPC, but began to have doubts when he traced its orbit, he told Astronomy.
Astronomer Jonathan McDowell from the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics then confirmed the suspicions, leading to the retraction by MPC.
“The Falcon launch had never crossed my mind. I almost concluded it was an actual NEO (near-Earth object) and stopped looking, but I asked around on the Minor Planet Mailing List just to erase my final doubts,” said the amateur astronomer from Turkey, who sought to be identified only as “G”.
“At the very least, we managed to filter out some non-minor-planet observations from the MPC database,” G said.
