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.

Musk's car was accidentally and briefly classified as an asteroid in 2025. The International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center issued a bulletin on Jan. 2 announcing 2018 CN41 as a newly discovered near-Earth object.

The car, launched in 2018 on a SpaceX rocket’s upper stage, is one of many human-made objects in deep space that could potentially be mistaken for natural celestial bodies