"Astronomers just deleted an asteroid because it turned out to be Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster"
@sundogplanets I am still not sure if this is satire.
Here is the Minor Planet Mailing List from January 2; describing the case in real time: https://groups.io/g/mpml/topic/110402021#msg40127 .
This happened before, in 2018 right after Elon Musk's marketing stunt, and the Falcon Heavy upper stage was identified and removed from the asteroid list.
The current case was because of additional observations being reported and a cross-check initially failing to make the correct linkage.
@michael_w_busch @tillmanreuter @sundogplanets It is important to remember that the Tesla car is still attached to the whole second stage of the Falcon Heavy. That is why it is large enough to see easily. The second stage must have a relatively low mass for its size because they burned all the fuel, so it probably behaves somewhat differently from a rocky asteroid of the same size.
@EricFielding @tillmanreuter @sundogplanets
Orbit fits include non-gravitational parameters; since small asteroids and comets get pushed around by radiation pressure and outgassing.
The non-gravitational terms are considerably larger for rocket upper stages, of course. That can contribute to failures to correctly link observations together.
@tillmanreuter @sundogplanets It's far from the only spacecraft to be mistaken for an asteroid. See, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J002E3 (believed to be a Saturn V upper stage) or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_VN84 (the Rosetta spacecraft).
@carnildo @tillmanreuter Not satire, and yeah, rediscovery of untracked, large space debris is increasingly common.