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Asteroid flying close to Earth turns out to be douchebag's car [1]
['Allan Rose Hill']
Date: 2025-01-28
Earlier this month, astronomers at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics reported discovery of an asteroid passing Earth as as 150,000 miles away. A citizen scientist first noticed the object that, given its proximity, would require tracking due to the risk of it eventually crashing into our planet. Turns out though, it wasn't an asteroid after all; it was a douchebag's car.
From Astronomy:
To be precise, it was Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster mounted to a Falcon Heavy upper stage, which boosted into orbit around the Sun on Feb. 6, 2018. The car — which had been owned and driven by Musk — was a test payload for the Falcon Heavy's first flight. At the time, it received a great deal of notoriety as the first production car to be flung into space, complete with a suited-up mannequin in the driver's seat named Starman.
The case of mistaken identity was resolved swiftly in a collaboration between professional and amateur astronomers. But some astronomers say it is also emblematic of a growing issue: the lack of transparency from nations and companies operating craft in deep space, beyond the orbits used by most satellites. While objects in lower Earth orbits are tracked by the U.S. Space Force, deeper space remains an unregulated frontier.
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