Just when we thought we’d seen the last of the Tesla Starman, he proves us wrong — again.
On Thursday, Reddit user AstronomyLive posted a video they had captured earlier the same day using iTelescope remote internet telescope. AstronomyLive seems to have spotted Elon Musk’s Tesla hurtling through the sky.
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“Using a 0.7 meter telescope in Australia on iTelescope.net I was able to spot Elon’s Tesla roadster still attached to the second stage of Falcon Heavy,” Astronomy Live writes on YouTube. “According to the resulting orbit, I calculated its distance to be about 1.8 times the distance to the moon when the pictures were taken.”
Here’s the video:
And here’s an up-close look at the Tesla:
What's up, Starman?
Starman has been notoriously difficult to track ever since he was sent out into space. Originally, the Tesla was supposed to be delivered into a kind of heliocentric orbit called a Trans-Mars injection, meaning it would orbit the sun but repeatedly come close to Earth and Mars. Instead, the car was overshot and veered off into deep space, supposedly headed for the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. On Thursday, however, SpaceX and NASA changed the trajectory again, as astronomers found the Tesla would come up millions of miles short of reaching the asteroid belt.
On Thursday, Elon Musk shared what we all assumed was last image of Starman on his one-way trip to the void. The now-viral image shows Starman and Tesla cruising further off into deep space:
Who knows when any of us will get another chance to catch the Starman on his journey. Wherever he is now, we hope he’s happy — at least he won’t have to deal with any traffic in the vacuum of space.
Now watch this: SpaceX “Starman” Mission: Video Shows Expectations vs. Reality
