Asteroid turns out to be Musk’s Tesla Roadster in space

A newly discovered asteroid was recently removed from the records after it was discovered that it was actually a cherry-red Tesla Roadster sent to space in 2018.

On January 2, the Minor Planet Center (MPC) at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, announced the discovery of an unusual asteroid, designated 2018 CN41.

First identified and submitted by a citizen scientist, the object’s orbit was notable, it came less than 240 000 km (150 000 miles) from Earth, closer than the orbit of the Moon.

That qualified it as a near-Earth object (NEO), and it was to be monitored for its potential to impact Earth someday.

But less than 17 hours later, the Minor Planet Center (MPC) issued an editorial notice that it was deleting 2018 CN41 from its records because, it turned out, the object was not an asteroid but Elon Musk’s 2010 cherry red roadster.

The Cherry Red Tesla Roadster was mounted on the Falcon Heavy upper stage and sent to space and into the Sun’s orbit on February 6, 2018, on the Falcon Heavy upper stage. It gained massive publicity during the time as the first production car to have been launched into space.

References:

¹ M.P.E.C. 2025-A49 – MPC – Issued at 16:13 UTC on January 3, 2025

² M.P.E.C. 2025-A38 – MPC – Issued at 23:52 UTC on January 2, 2025

Rishav Kothari

Rishav Kothari is Editor-in-Chief of The Watchers, where he runs the newsroom and covers earthquakes, volcanoes, severe weather and space weather.

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