The newly discovered asteroid turns out to be a Tesla Roadster launched into space

Elon Musk The sense of humor is out of this world.

Seven years after SpaceX CEO launched a Tesla Roadster into orbit, astronomers of The Minor Planet Center at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Massachusetts mistook it for an asteroid earlier this month.

A day after astronomers at the Minor Planet Center recorded 2018 CN41, it was removed on January 3 when they revealed it was actually Musk’s roadster.

The center said on its website that the registration of 2018 CN41 was removed after “it was noted that the orbit coincides with an artificial object, 2018-017A, Falcon Heavy Upper stage with the Tesla Roadster. The designation 2018 CN41 is being removed and it will appear as omitted”. “.

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Seven years after SpaceX’s CEO launched a Tesla Roadster into orbit, astronomers at the Minor Planet Center at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Massachusetts mistook it for an asteroid earlier this month. (SpaceX via Getty Images)

SpaceX launched the Tesla Roadster on the maiden flight of SpaceX’s massive Falcon Heavy rocket in February 2018.

The roadster was expected to enter an elliptical orbit around the Sun, going just beyond Mars and back to Earth, but it apparently exceeded Mars’ orbit and kept going to the asteroid beltaccording to Musk at the time.

SpaceX launched the Tesla Roadster on the maiden flight of SpaceX’s massive Falcon Heavy rocket in February 2018. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images))

When the roadster was mistaken for an asteroid earlier this month, it was less than 150,000 miles from Earth, which is closer than the moon’s orbit, according to Astronomy magazine, meaning astronomers would want to monitor how near approaches the Earth.

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Center for Astrophysics (CfA) astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell told Astronomy magazine that the error shows problems with untracked objects.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched his former personal car into orbit. (Justin Sullivan)

“In the worst case scenario, you spend a billion launching a space probe to study an asteroid and you only realize it’s not an asteroid when you get there,” he said.

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Fox News Digital has reached out to SpaceX for comment.