{"id":89822,"date":"2025-01-30T22:59:41","date_gmt":"2025-01-30T22:59:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/elon-musks-tesla-roadster-mistaken-for-near-earth-asteroid-mpc-confirms-the-express-tribune\/"},"modified":"2025-01-30T22:59:41","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T22:59:41","slug":"elon-musks-tesla-roadster-mistaken-for-near-earth-asteroid-mpc-confirms-the-express-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/elon-musks-tesla-roadster-mistaken-for-near-earth-asteroid-mpc-confirms-the-express-tribune\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk\u2019s tesla roadster mistaken for near-Earth asteroid, MPC confirms | The Express Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"\">\n<figure class=\"flex items-center text-center\"><figcaption class=\"text-3 font-sans uppercase mr-3 whitespace-no-wrap\"><span class=\"ls-art\">Listen\u00a0to\u00a0article<\/span><\/figcaption><audio class=\"h-5 w-60 sm:w-80 rounded-none\" preload=\"metadata\" controlslist=\"noplaybackrate nodownload\" id=\"tts\" controls=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/i.tribune.com.pk\/attachments\/speech_20250130053807892-LP2U6.mp3\"\/><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>A mysterious object initially identified as a potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroid has turned out to be none other than Elon Musk&#8217;s cherry-red Tesla Roadster that SpaceX launched into space in 2018.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this month, an amateur astronomer discovered what appeared to be an asteroid, designated 2018 CN41, that seemed to be passing alarmingly close to Earth. The object came within less than 240,000 km of the planet\u2014closer than the Moon\u2019s orbit\u2014raising concerns of a potential collision.<\/p>\n<p>However, the Minor Planet Center (MPC), the agency responsible for cataloging asteroids, quickly retracted the classification after determining that the object was actually Elon Musk\u2019s Tesla Roadster, which was sent into space aboard SpaceX\u2019s inaugural Falcon Heavy flight.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Photo: SpaceX<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe designation 2018 CN41, announced in MPEC 2025-A38 on Jan 2, 2025 UT, is being deleted,\u201d the MPC said in an official notice. \u201cIt was pointed out the orbit matches an artificial object 2018-017A, Falcon Heavy Upper stage with the Tesla roadster. The designation 2018 CN41 is being deleted and will be listed as omitted.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The car, which features a mannequin driver named &#8220;Starman,&#8221; was launched in 2018 as a dummy payload and has been orbiting the Sun ever since. At the time, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said the unconventional payload choice was meant to make space exploration more exciting.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Photo: SpaceX\" src=\"https:\/\/i.tribune.com.pk\/media\/images\/sidra-2025-01-30t103455-8121738215354-0\/sidra-2025-01-30t103455-8121738215354-0.png\" style=\"height:undefinedpx; width:undefinedpx\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Photo: SpaceX<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnything boring is terrible, especially companies, so we decided to send something unusual, something that made us feel,\u201d Musk had said.<\/p>\n<p>The amateur astronomer behind the initial discovery of the object, identified only as \u201cG\u201d from Turkey, admitted he was \u201cecstatic\u201d when he first submitted the identification to the MPC. However, doubts began to creep in as he analyzed its orbital trajectory.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Falcon launch had never crossed my mind. I almost concluded it was an actual NEO (near-Earth object) and stopped looking, but I asked around on the Minor Planet Mailing List just to erase my final doubts,\u201d G told Astronomy.<\/p>\n<p>Astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell from the Harvard\u2013Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics later confirmed that the object was indeed the Tesla Roadster, leading to the MPC\u2019s retraction.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt the very least, we managed to filter out some non-minor-planet observations from the MPC database,\u201d G added.<\/p>\n<p>The bizarre mix-up serves as a reminder that not all objects in space are natural celestial bodies\u2014some, like Musk\u2019s Tesla, are just joyrides that have taken an interplanetary detour.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Listen\u00a0to\u00a0article A mysterious object initially identified as a potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroid has turned out to be none other than Elon Musk&#8217;s cherry-red Tesla Roadster that SpaceX launched into space in 2018. Earlier this month, an amateur astronomer discovered what appeared to be an asteroid, designated 2018 CN41, that seemed to be passing alarmingly close [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89823,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.tribune.com.pk\/media\/images\/sidra-2025-01-30t103641-7371738215403-0\/sidra-2025-01-30t103641-7371738215403-0.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}