The car, launched in 2018 on a SpaceX rocket’s upper stage, is one of many human-made objects in deep space that could potentially be mistaken for natural celestial bodies

The Minor Planet Center seemingly mistook Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster for a small body in space earlier this month, much to the fascination of the billionaire.

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

Avi Loeb shares the story of how a Tesla Roadster had some astronomers convinced for a time that they had discovered a new asteroid.

Astronomers were left less than impressed when they uncovered the truth about an asteroid they'd been keeping an eye on. On January 2, scientists at the Minor Planet Center at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, announced they had discovered an unusual asteroid.

Musk's car was accidentally and briefly classified as an asteroid in 2025. The International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center issued a bulletin on Jan. 2 announcing 2018 CN41 as a newly discovered near-Earth object.

Less than 24 hours after the Minor Planet Center announced a new asteroid, it said the object was actually Musk's electric car launched into space as payload on a rocket.