On February 6th, the Tesla Roadster electric sports car will have completed five years of its journey in outer space, according to CNN.
Data estimates show that the dark red vehicle has completed about three and a quarter turns around the sun at about 203 million miles (327 million kilometers) from Earth, according to the Where's Roadstar tracking website, which uses data from the US space agency NASA.
However, it is difficult to locate the vehicle in which the doll called "Star-Man" is sitting with certainty, nor can it be confirmed whether that vehicle is still one piece or parts of it have worn out.
- The astronomer, Jonathan McDowell, at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, had suggested about half a year ago that the vehicle was still complete.
- According to NASA estimates, “Roadstar” will not approach any planet until 2035, when it will pass near Mars, and then later, between 2047 and 2050, it will do the same with Earth, as it will pass a few million kilometers away.
- Looking at a previous study, the probability of the car colliding with the Earth during the next fifteen million years is 22 percent, and there is a 12 percent chance that it will collide with Venus.
- And in the event that the car returns to Earth, it will not pose any danger to humanity, because it will burn while penetrating the atmosphere of the blue planet.
- The American billionaire, Elon Musk, the owner of the Tesla car company and the founder of “SpaceX”, had said when launching the “Roadstar” car into space that he hoped that humans would one day be able to establish settlements on other planets in the solar system.
- And he noted that if that dream came true, he also hopes that "his descendants will be able to put that car in one of the museums" of those settlements.