Total space cadets!
Harvard University-affiliated astronomers announced the discovery of a new asteroid zooming precariously close to Earth — only to learn it was actually a Tesla sports car launched by Elon Musk as a publicity stunt seven years ago, scientists said Friday.
The Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass., officially registered the new space rock Jan. 2, saying it was spotted hurling through the final frontier roughly 150,000 miles from Earth, according to Astronomy magazine.
Its distance was closer to the planet than the moon— prompting the scientists to declare the asteroid had the potential to some day slam into Earth.
The elite organization, located at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, then gave the object an official name: “2018 CN41.”
But astronomers put the brakes on the exciting discovery 17 hours later — after learning they’d mistaken a cherry-red sports car for an asteroid.
The Tesla Roadster had been blasted into the cosmos during a publicity stunt in February 2018, when Musk’s company, SpaceX, was testing its Falcon Heavy rocket.
During the astronomically odd gimmick, SpaceX plopped a mannequin in a white spacesuit behind the wheel of the electric ride and sent it into space on the rocket.
On Jan. 3, Minor Planet Center announced it was “omitting” the would-be asteroid from its records.
The out-of-this world mistake irked astronomers, who blamed a growing number of “untracked” space objects for mucking up their work.
Objects such as Musk’s car could hinder astronomers’ ability to protect the Earth from potentially hazardous asteroids, said Center for Astrophysics astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell to the magazine.
“Worst case, you spend a billion launching a space probe to study an asteroid and only realize it’s not an asteroid when you get there,” McDowell said.
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