Tesla Space Car – Expressive
Almost four years ago, on February 6, 2018, American billionaire Elon Musk launched the Tesla Roadster electric sports car into space.
Musk was able to send a red car with a doll wearing a spacesuit called “Starman” in the driver’s seat, with the help of his company’s Falcon Heavy rocket, “SpaceX”.
According to the website whereisroadster.com, which uses data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and provides live updates on where “Starman” is, the car continues its space journey through the solar system, and has completed about 2.6 revolutions around the sun since its launch, which means They have traveled the equivalent of all roads on our planet 49.7 times.
Since its arrival in space, the red Roadster has been cruising in a somewhat irregular orbit in the solar system, orbiting the sun approximately every 557 days, according to WhereIsRoadster.com.
The data shows that it is now about 377 million kilometers from Earth and is moving away from it at an estimated speed of about 1200 kilometers per hour, and is about 315 million kilometers from Mars, and is heading towards the planet at a speed of 28,529 km / hour.
The site also shows that the car is located 235 million km from the sun, and is heading towards the star at a speed of 13,445 km / h.
Space experts are struggling to determine where the craft is headed due to its erratic orbit. In 2020, Starman is close to becoming the first “human” to land on Mars as the rover made its first approach to the Red Planet within 0.05 AU or less than 5 million miles from Mars.
Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, believes that the car is still complete, although it may have been hit by some meteorites during its journey through space.
According to NASA estimates, the car will not approach a planet until 2035, when it will pass near Mars. Then later, between 2047 and 2050, it would do the same with Earth, passing a few million kilometers away.
Looking at a study published on arXiv, the probability of a spacecraft hitting Earth in the next 15 million years is about 22%, and there is a 12% chance that it will hit Venus or the Sun.
According to a group of American scientists, if the car “returns” to Earth, it will not cause any problem because it will burn up in the atmosphere of our planet.