The discovery of a new asteroid this month has turned out to be Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster launched by SpaceX in 2018.

SpaceX launched Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster into space, sending it on an unexpected journey beyond Earth. The car, with a mannequin dubbed "Starman" at the wheel, was meant to orbit the Sun, and it's been cruising through space ever since.

An object that was incorrectly identified by an amateur astronomer as an asteroid has turned out to be a Tesla Roadster. Earlier this month, on Jan. 2, a new asteroid called 2018 CN41 was announced by the Minor Planet Center at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.