The first-generation Tesla Roadster that Elon Musk fired into orbit two and a half years ago recently made its first close approach with Mars.
Taking to Twitter, SpaceX confirmed that the Roadster and Starman, a “passenger” that’s wearing a prototype of SpaceX’s space suit, made a close approach with Mars on October 8. However, the Tesla Roadster wasn’t exactly within touching distance of the Red Planet and was instead within 0.05 astronomical units, which is just under 5 million miles, away from Mars. As it stands, Starman is much closer to Mars than it is Earth as, at the time of writing, it was almost 37 million miles from its home planet.
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A website called ‘Where is Roadster?’ operated by programmer Ben Pearson tracks the live position of Starman and reveals that the car is 129 million miles from the Sun and moving toward it at a speed of 13,637 miles per hour (21,947 km per hour). It remains to be seen what kind of condition the car is in, but if the battery is still working, Space Oddity would have been played over 264,000 times in Starman’s left ear and ‘Is There Life On Mars’ has been played 356,888 times in his right ear.
Starman, last seen leaving Earth, made its first close approach with Mars today—within 0.05 astronomical units, or under 5 million miles, of the Red Planet pic.twitter.com/gV8barFTm7
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 7, 2020
Elon Musk launched the Tesla into space on a Falcon Heavy rocket from SpaceX on February 6, 2018. While some weren’t impressed with the environmentalist sending garbage into space for no good reason, it has worked wonders from a publicity standpoint.