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Space
Space
Science
Tariq Malik

When is an asteroid not an asteroid? When it's Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster, it turns out.

Elon Musk Tesla Inc. Jonathan McDowell Earth AstroForge SpaceX NASA AAs SpaceNews
An electric car is just one of the many unusual objects that have left the confines of Earth.

The discovery of a new asteroid this month has turned out to be anything but. In fact, it isn't even a natural object.

The wannabe asteroid, announced on Jan. 2 as 2018 CN41, is actually a Tesla Roadster launched into space years ago by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. The company sent the car (with a spacesuit-clad mannequin called "Starman" in the driver's seat) into a long orbit around the sun in 2018 as the first payload of the company's Falcon Heavy rocket.

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