On February 6, 2018, almost 7 years ago, the Falcon Heavy rocket lifted off from Earth on its maiden flight. On this occasion, the launcher developed by SpaceX, on an idea by Elon Musk, carried a Tesla Roadster and its space driver, the mannequin “Starman.” Since then, almost no news, because this Tesla Roadster has just been mistakenly found. Initially, the greatest astrophysicists thought they had discovered a new asteroid, which was not the case.
This new bizarre story of the Tesla Roadster sent initially into space in 2018, begins with a simple space observation by a Turkish astronomy enthusiast. Through his telescope, he observes what he thinks is a new asteroid. The amateur astronomer hurries to have his discovery validated by the Minor Planet Center (MPC), which is directly related to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (United States – Massachusetts), where specialists in space and asteroid observations work. Initially, too quickly, the MPC validated, on February 2nd, the discovery of this new asteroid, which it named 2018 CN 41. Since it is quite close to Earth, about 240,000 km, researchers decided to deepen their research, as the presumed asteroid could crash into Earth. It should be noted that the Astronomy website revealed this rather serious space story.
Relying on the “Horizons” database, which depends, no more no less, on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), MPC astrophysicists will discover that the asteroid, almost worthy of the movie Armageddon (1998), is ultimately not an asteroid, but a car, namely Elon Musk‘s Tesla Roadster which has been traveling with “Starman” at the wheel in space for almost 7 years.
Finally, for years, we have been waiting, not for the return of the Tesla Roadster and “Starman” to earth, but for the new version of the 100% electric Roadster, promised by Elon Musk since 2017. The new Tesla Roadster 2.0, which drives “on the ground,” may be for the end of the year 2025.
The editorial team
Photos: Tesla and SpaceX
