SpaceX launched a Tesla sports car five years ago. where is it now

Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news about fascinating discoveries, scientific advances and more.

CNN —

It’s been half a decade since SpaceX caused a worldwide stir with its decision to send Elon Musk’s personal Tesla Roadster into space, sending the car on an endless journey into the cosmic wilderness, where it is expected to remain for millennia to come becomes.

Since Monday, February 6, the cherry-colored sports car has officially been in space for exactly five years.

At the time of its anniversary, data estimates show that it had completed about three and a quarter loops around the Sun and was about 203 million miles (327 million kilometers) from Earth, according to tracking website whereisroadster.com.

The Roadster has traveled more than 2.5 billion miles in space (4 billion kilometers), mostly through a barren vacuum. In 2020, the vehicle made its first close approach to Mars, traveling within 5 million miles of the planet, about 20 times the distance between Earth and the Moon.

However, it’s difficult to say with absolute certainty where the vehicle is – or whether it’s still in one piece, given the possibility that the car was damaged or obliterated by a meteorite, or eroded beyond recognition by radiation . There have been no direct sightings of the Roadster since 2018, in the weeks just after it was launched into orbit on a three-million-pound Falcon Heavy rocket. Current data is based only on calculated estimates of the car’s trajectory.

Astronomers don’t have much incentive to actively track the car because it doesn’t offer much scientific value.

The Tesla would ultimately serve as a disposable “dummy payload” for Falcon Heavy’s first mission in February 2018, a launch that even Musk had predicted would only have a 50:50 success.

But the launch eventually went smoothly. And since then, the car has been circling the sun on an elongated path swinging as far out as the orbit of Mars and as close to the sun as the orbit of Earth.

On Monday it just crossed the orbit of Mars, even though the planet itself was on the opposite side of the sun.

Before launch in 2018, SpaceX loaded the car with various Easter eggs. Behind the wheel was a spacesuit-clad mannequin nicknamed Starman, and on the dashboard was a sign that read “Don’t Panic,” a nod to the famous sci-fi story The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. There was also a disc with the works of science fiction author Isaac Asminov and a plaque with the names of thousands of SpaceX employees.

Musk said at the time of the launch that he hoped humans would one day establish settlements on other planets in the solar system — a longstanding Musk fantasy that also underpins SpaceX’s stated mission to colonize Mars. When that happens, Musk said he hopes his “descendants can tow[the Roadster]back to a museum.”

For now, however, the Roadster is unlikely to pass another planet until it passes Mars again in 2035. It will then make two flybys within a few million miles of Earth, in 2047 and 2050, according to NASA data.

A 2018 paper also estimated that there was about a 22% chance of the car colliding with the Earth within the next 15 million years. It has a 12% chance of crashing into Venus or the Sun.

If the car crash-courses with Earth, we have to hope that it will be blown to bits as it slams back into the dense atmosphere. (Objects from outer space that hit Earth are actually fairly common, and usually burn up upon entering the atmosphere. Such hits rarely affect populated areas.)

To keep track of the Roadster’s predicted location, it has its own entry in NASA’s Horizons database, which follows all of the solar system’s “bodies” including explorers, planets, moons, comets and asteroids. The Tesla is listed as item -143205, “SpaceX Roadster (spacecraft) (Tesla)”.

To see a simulation of Tesla’s orbit (based on the data in Horizons), go to OrbitSimulator.com and search for “roadster”.

Source: www.cnn.com