Elon Musk's Tesla still orbits the sun, two years after SpaceX launch
Where is the Roadster today? We've got a pretty good guess.
One of the craziest parts of the launch was seeing a dummy astronaut inside the Tesla Roadster floating in space.
This chart shows where Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster is expected to be as of Feb. 6, 2020.
Remember when Elon Musk did that crazy thing? Which one? The one when he flung his personal Tesla Roadster into space with the launch of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket on Feb. 6, 2018.
As far as we know, that sporty red car is still out there exploring our solar system.
Programmer Ben Pearson's Where is Roadster? website keeps track of the vehicle's likely location. Current estimates for the two-year launch anniversary on Thursday place it beyond the orbit of Mars and far, far away from Earth.
That's assuming the Tesla hasn't run into any obstacles or been abducted by aliens.
According to Pearson's data, the car has traveled over 1 billion miles (1.6 billion km) and is well into its second orbit around the sun.
Two years in space will have taken its toll on the Tesla and the spacesuit-wearing mannequin named Starman at the wheel. The car was designed for our planet and not for the harsh conditions of space.
Starman will remain separated from us by quite a distance for quite a long time. Researchers calculated that the Tesla will have a fairly close encounter with Earth in 2091. That would be a great time to send out a recovery spacecraft to bring it back home.
There may even be a Musk Museum of Crazy Things by then.
