Featured Image Credit: Handout / Handout
Elon Musk's Tesla roadster was spectacularly launched into space in 2018 as part of a scientific experiment for his company SpaceX, and it's still out there.
Well, up there to be exact.
The Tesla was sent on a trip beyond our atmosphere, while acting as a 'dummy payload' for the first mission of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy; a launch Musk himself predicted only had a 50/50 chance at succeeding as he kissed goodbye to his own personal vehicle.
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A dedicated website named Where Is Roadster has been set up to monitor the car's progress, and at this exact time of writing (Friday 20 October), the current location is 46,761,124 miles (75,254,757 km, 0.503 AU, 4.18 light minutes) from Earth, moving away from Earth at a speed of 7,376 mi/h (11,871 km/h, 3.30 km/s).
The website also details extra insights into the Roadster's journey, including the fact that the vehicle has now traveled far enough to drive all of the world’s roads 70.4 times. It's also achieved a fuel economy of 22,315.5 miles per gallon, assuming 126,000 gallons of fuel.
The website also added a note about the potential soundtrack for the car as it journeys around space and for its 'passenger', a mannequin named Starman. The website states: "If the battery was still working, Starman has listened to Space Oddity 565,541 times since he launched in one ear, and to Is There Life On Mars? 762,043 times in his other ear."
Starman was an added touch from Elon and his team, with one hand firmly on the wheel and the words 'Don't Panic' etched on the dashboard.
All of the above information is assuming the car and Starman are still happily floating around space complete in one piece. Yet the likelihood is that the car and poor Starman will have been involved in a space-crash and struck by meteoroid, or even completely eroded as a result of radiation and the harsh environment in space.
Researchers had already looked into the chances of the car impacting Earth some day, and calculated the odds at just 6% within a million years, so we don't need to worry about the vehicle coming crashing down any time soon. If Roadster and Starman are still going strong in nearly 70 years, the team also worked out they will make a close(ish) encounter with Earth in 2091 when it will come within a couple hundred thousand miles of Earth, but still not quite enough to collide.
So, five years on, let's the vehicle is still going strong!
