In 2017, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk was preparing for the test flight of Falcon Heavy, a partially reusable launch vehicle. The launch vehicle has since completed five successful missions, including the most recent on January 15, 2023. But in the days of preparation, he said in an interview that because of the launch It was very risky so he wanted it to carry “the silliest thing we could imagine.” After a suggestion from a Twitter user, Musk decided to launch his personal Tesla Roadster into space! five years have passed since then and the Tesla car is still roaming in space.However, there is a possibility that it will crash back to Earth!You read that right.
According to one report by CNN, the car has completed about three-quarters of a lap Sun and it has traveled 4 billion km. It is currently located 327 million km from Earth. During this period, it also avoided a number of close encounters, of which, in 2020, it came within 800,000 km of Mars. But it may not be possible to avoid the problem forever.
Tesla Roadster can plunge to Earth
For now, Earth is safe from Elon Musk’s Roadster. The CNN report says that, based on data from NASA, the car won’t come close to another planet until 2035 when it will pass by Mars again. It will then make two flybys of Earth in 2047 and 2050, where it will arrive within just a few million kilometers.
However, one learn published on arXiv with the title ‘Random Motion of Cars and Their Probability of Collisions with Planets’ revealed that in the next 15 million years there is a 22% chance that the car will crash into the Earth. There is also a 12% chance that the Tesla Roadster could end up on Venus.
In 2017, after revealing that he would send personal cars to space, Musk famous speak, “I like the thought of a car that seems to drift endlessly through space and perhaps discovered by an alien race millions of years into the future.” However, during the launch, he revealed in an interview that he hopes humans will establish settlements on other planets in the solar system and possibly his descendants will. drag the Tesla Roadster back to the museum.
