skip to content

Elon Musk’s Tesla in space could crash back to earth

Date:

The Tesla Roadster was launched into space last week Well, three scientists just took a close look at the vehicle’s orbit over the next million years, and they found there is a slight chance the car might crash into Earth or Venus.

Even though, the chance is pretty small, somewhere around 6 percent for Earth and 2.5 percent for Venus. And a million years is a very long time, our species has only been around for about a fifth of that span. There’s plenty of room for civilization-ending catastrophes to occur long before the Tesla re-enters Earth’s atmosphere.

Besides, the car would likely burn up before reaching the surface. The results, due to be published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, were posted this week on the pre-print site arXiv.

The Tesla was launched into space on February 6 atop SpaceX’s vaunted Falcon Heavy rocket, its only passenger a spacesuit-wearing mannequin named “Starman.”

Study authors Hanno Rein, Daniel Tamayo and David Vokrouhlický, all experts in orbital dynamics, emphasize that it’s impossible to map out precisely where Starman will go as his vehicle floats through space. The roadster is currently drifting on an elliptical orbit around the sun that repeatedly crosses the path of Mars. At its farthest, the car will be 1.67 times Earth’s distance from the sun.

The roadster will experience its next close encounter with Earth in 2091 — the first of many, Rein and his colleagues say. With each successive flyby past Earth and other bodies in space, its orbit is perturbed and becomes harder to predict.

But by running many simulations of how those encounters might play out, the scientists can get a pretty good estimate of what’s likely to happen. They conclude that the car’s “dynamical lifetime” will probably be a few tens of millions of years.

 

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Share post:

Subscribe

Popular

More like this
Related

“I Do Not Concede The Fight…”: Kamala Harris In Her Address After Electoral Loss

Kamala Harris conceded defeat to Donald Trump in the 2024...

Mahakumbh 2025: Roads Leading To Sangam To Be Widened And Completed By Nov 30

In preparation for Mahakumbh 2025, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's...

Who Is Usha Vance, The First Indian Origin Woman Set To Become The Second Lady of US?

Usha Vance, the wife of Donald Trump's vice presidential...

India An Essential Part Of Resolution Of Conflict In West Asia: Israeli Ambassador

Reuven Azar, Israel's Ambassador to India, commented on Donald...