Newly discovered asteroid turns out to be Tesla Roadster launched into space

Elon Musk the sense of humor is out of this world.

Seven years after the SpaceX CEO launched the Tesla Roadster into orbit, astronomers from The Minor Planet Center at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Massachusetts mistook it for an asteroid earlier this month.

A day after astronomers at the Minor Planet Center registered 2018 CN41, it was erased on January 3 when they discovered it was actually Musk’s roadster.

The center announced on its website that the registry of 2018 CN41 was deleted after “it was determined that the orbit matches an artificial object, 2018-017A, Falcon Heavy Upper stage with Tesla Roadster. The designation 2018 CN41 is being deleted and will be listed as omitted.”

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Seven years after the SpaceX CEO launched the Tesla Roadster into orbit, astronomers at the Small Planet Center at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Massachusetts mistook it for an asteroid earlier this month. (SpaceX via Getty Images)

SpaceX launched the Tesla Roadster on the maiden flight of SpaceX’s massive Falcon Heavy rocket in February 2018.

The roadster was expected to go into an elliptical orbit around the Sun, going a bit beyond Mars and back towards Earth, but it apparently exceeded the orbit of Mars and stuck around heading for the asteroid beltMusk said then.

SpaceX launched the Tesla Roadster on the maiden flight of SpaceX’s massive Falcon Heavy rocket in February 2018. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images))

When the roadster was mistaken for an asteroid earlier this month, it was less than 150,000 miles from Earth, which is closer than the moon’s orbit, according to Astronomy Magazine, meaning astronomers would want to track how close it gets to Earth.

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Center for Astrophysics (CfA) astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell told the journal Astronomy that the error shows problems with untracked objects.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX then launched his former personal car into orbit. (Justin Sullivan)

“Worst case, you spend a billion to launch a space probe to study an asteroid and realize it’s not an asteroid until you get there,” he said.

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Fox News Digital has reached out to SpaceX for comment.