Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster Mistaken for Asteroid by Astronomers

The car, launched into space in 2018 as a SpaceX publicity stunt, was briefly classified as a near-Earth object before the error was corrected.

Astronomers initially identified Elon Musk's 2018-launched Tesla Roadster as a newly discovered asteroid, designating it as 2018 CN41 on January 2, 2025.
The Minor Planet Center retracted the asteroid classification less than 17 hours later after confirming the object's orbit matched that of Musk's car launched on the Falcon Heavy rocket.
The misidentification highlights challenges in tracking artificial objects in deep space, with experts warning of growing risks as more space missions are launched without centralized data repositories.
This is not the first instance of artificial objects being mistaken for celestial bodies, with previous cases involving spacecraft like ESA's Rosetta and NASA's Lucy missions.
The Tesla Roadster, equipped with a mannequin named 'Starman,' continues to orbit the Sun and is expected to remain in space for millions of years, with a small chance of eventual collision with Earth or Venus.