Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster, launched in 2018, was recently mistaken for an asteroid, prompting concerns about the lack of transparency in spacecraft operations. This incident underscores the need for a centralized tracking system to prevent future misidentifications.
A recent discovery of a new asteroid turned out to be anything but ordinary. It wasn't even a natural object. Instead, it was Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster , which launched into space in 2018 with a Starman mannequin at the wheel. This flashy flight caught the attention of astronomers seven years later when it was mistakenly identified as an asteroid. On January 2nd, the Minor Planet Center at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics announced the discovery of designation 2018 CN41.
However, a day later, they retracted the claim after realizing the true nature of the object. This isn't an isolated incident. Astronomers have misidentified other human-made objects as asteroids in the past. The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), launched in 2001, was mistaken for an asteroid on multiple occasions. The probe studied the universe in microwaves until 2010 from a stable point in space called L2, a million miles from Earth. These misidentifications highlight a growing concern in the scientific community about the lack of transparency in spacecraft operations from both commercial and government providers.In September 2024, the American Astronomical Society (AAS) called for greater clarity in tracking spacecraft and spent rocket stages in orbit and performing interplanetary or cis-lunar operations. They emphasized the need for transparency to promote space situational awareness, minimize interference between missions, prevent interference with observations of natural objects, including potentially hazardous asteroids, and ensure the peaceful exploration and use of outer space. Experts believe that as more commercial companies and government agencies launch satellites and missions, the problem of misidentification could worsen. Currently, there isn't a centralized system like those used for tracking aircraft and vessels on Earth. Astronmers like Jonathan McDowell, who worked on the AAS study, argue for a system similar to NASA's Horizons System, which already tracks data for asteroids, comets, planetary satellites, planets, the sun, and select spacecraft. McDowell stresses the importance of such a system to prevent costly mistakes, such as spending billions on a mission to an asteroid that turns out not to be an asteroid
Asteroid Spacecraft Transparency Tesla Roadster Astronomy Space Situational Awareness
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