Launched from Earth more than two years ago, Starman aboard Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster has edged closer to Mars—though it's merely passing by on its cosmic journey.
In February 2018, SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket carried Elon Musk's personal Tesla Roadster into a heliocentric orbit, complete with a spacesuit-clad dummy named Starman at the wheel. This unprecedented payload marked the rocket's debut flight and doubled as brilliant branding for Tesla. Since then, the car and its passenger have logged extraordinary mileage through the void of space.
“Starman, last seen leaving Earth, made its first close approach to Mars today – at less than 0.05 astronomical units”, announced SpaceX via Twitter on Wednesday, October 7. For context, one astronomical unit equals the average Earth-Sun distance of about 150 million kilometers. That puts the Tesla roughly 8 million kilometers from the Red Planet—a mere flyby in astronomical terms.
The Roadster traces an elliptical orbit around the Sun, completing each loop in 557 Earth days. Tracking data from whereisroadster.com reveals it has now covered nearly 2.1 billion kilometers. To visualize: that's equivalent to driving every road on Earth more than 57 times over.
Without recent imagery, assessing the Roadster's condition is challenging. Intense solar radiation and cosmic rays likely ravaged its plastic components and carbon fiber chassis over time.
Chemist William Carroll from Indiana University explained earlier: “These materials consist largely of carbon-carbon bonds and carbon-hydrogen bonds. The energy of stellar radiation can crack these bonds. These organics, in this environment, I wouldn't even give them a year!”
After more than two years exposed, little may remain intact. Yet the remnants will keep cruising interplanetary space for years ahead. SpaceX once estimated a billion-year odyssey for Starman. A 2018 modeling study suggests slim odds (2-6%) of eventual collisions with Earth or Venus in tens of millions of years.
