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.

In 2018, during the launch of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, Elon Musk sent a Tesla Roadster into space, which later led to some confusion.

Researchers have admitted to mistakenly identifying Elon Musk's car as a near-Earth asteroid, highlighting the importance accurate space tracking.

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.

It was in 2018, when Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk took the audacious step of 'strapping' a car before launching it into space. In February 2018, Elon Musk's SpaceX launched a Tesla Roadster to Falcon Heavy Test flight. An Asteroid About To Hit Earth?

Musk launched his personal Tesla Roadster into space on February 6, 2018, as a test payload for the Falcon Heavy rocket.

However, the Minor Planet Center (MPC), the agency responsible for cataloging asteroids, quickly retracted the classification after determining that the object was actually Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster, which was sent into space aboard SpaceX’s inaugural Falcon Heavy flight.

At the beginning of the year, scientists at the Minor Planet Center at the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard and Smithsonian, logged the discovery of an asteroid identified by an amateur astronomer. Within a day,