Musk's Space Tesla "recovered"
As submitted ; if posted to front page, I'll modify this to reflect the editing. .
Chatter on the "Minor Planets Mailing List" (an email list for people interested in the "small bodies" of the Solar system) indicate that the Tesla Roadster polluting interplanetary space since being dumped there in 2018 has been spotted again. Telescopes in four countries reported the object. From the object's brightness, it appears to remain attached to the Falcon upper stage.
Initially, the object was misidentified as a minor planet, but once there were sufficient observations to establish it's orbit, it's identity as a "rediscovery" of "2018-017A" was established. Since the object is not natural, it is of no further interest to the astronomers and the last batch of data have been assigned to "artificial object 2018-017A, Falcon Heavy Upper stage with the Tesla roadster". Some people here might be interested though.
- "Is it coming back?"
- Yes, as it does every 1.525 years. This will be it's 4th return.
- "Will it hit us?"
- No. This time around, it'll be about 0.1 years behind Earth where it crosses Earth's orbit (4 × 1.525 − 6), which would be about 94 million km away. The closest it'll come back is about 240 thousand km away — about 2/3 of the Earth-Moon distance.
I'm not sure if Elon left the keys in the ignition. Recovering it to Earth would be an amusing trick for Bezos. There should be no legal issues since the object was clearly abandoned by it's owner. Set your diaries for 2065-ish.
If it goes onto the front page, it'll probably be edited. Which is why I've got CSS for "Insert" and "
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