Newly Identified Asteroid Turns Out To Be Tesla In Space: Report

HAWTHORNE, CA — At the beginning of this year, an amateur astronomer at the Minor Planet Center at the Center for Astrophysics discovered a new asteroid, according to the Smithsonian Magazine.

Just a day later, the log was deleted because it turned out the asteroid was a Tesla strapped to part of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.

"The designation 2018 CN41, announced in MPEC 2025-A38 on Jan 2, 2025 UT, is being deleted," the retraction notice reads. "The next day it was pointed out the orbit matches an artificial object
2018-017A, Falcon Heavy Upper stage with the Tesla roadster."

The Tesla vehicle was launched on Feb. 6, 2018 from Cape Canaveral Florida with a dummy named "Starman" in the driver's seat and "Space Oddity" by Davis Bowie playing from the speakers. The car is among several human-made objects in space.

Peter Veres, an astronomer at the Minor Planet Center, told Smithsonian Magazine the mistaken identification was from an astronomer from Turkey reported a small near-Earth object.

Typically, to identify if an object in space is man-made astronomers look in a third party software that logs them. Artificial objects also tend to orbit Earth, astronomers said.

The Tesla does not orbit Earth and it wasn't in the third-party software, reports said, so it appeared to be an asteroid.

Read more from the Smithsonian Magazine: An Amateur Astronomer Seemingly Spotted a New Asteroid. It Turned Out to Be a Tesla in Space