Tesla Roadster Triggered 17-Hour Asteroid Scare After 2018 Space Launch
Updated
Updated · Supercar Blondie · Jul 20
Tesla Roadster Triggered 17-Hour Asteroid Scare After 2018 Space Launch
2 articles · Updated · Supercar Blondie · Jul 20
Summary
A Turkish amateur astronomer in January 2025 flagged Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster as a near-Earth object after spotting it less than 150,000 miles from Earth.
The Minor Planet Center temporarily logged the object as asteroid 2018 CN41, then deleted the entry within 17 hours after astronomers identified it as the car launched on SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy in 2018.
Astronomers said the mix-up was plausible because spacecraft and rocks in similar orbits can look nearly identical through a telescope; at least four spacecraft were similarly misidentified between 2020 and 2022.
The Roadster is now more than 81.7 million miles from Earth, moving toward the planet at 14,226 mph in a heliocentric orbit that crosses Earth and Mars, though any eventual return would be millions of years away and harmless.