Newly Discovered Asteroid Turns Out To Be Elon Musk's Car

I've got to assume that if you're an astronomer, one of the biggest things you can do is discover something. Anything. A planet, a star, a comet, a galaxy.

Some astronomers thought they had done exactly that with what they believed to be a previously undiscovered asteroid, only it turned out to be something else.

Something else very much of this world.

Researchers at Minor Planet Center (which is wear planets hone their skills before getting called up to the Show) at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, announced that a citizen scientist named HA Güler had discovered an asteroid.

According to Astronomy, They named it 2018 CN41 — great name; really rolls off the tongue — but it was close to Earth which caused some concern.

Then they did some more digging and… well, it wasn't an asteroid, it was Elon Musk's car.

Remember when Musk launched his Tesla Roadster into space because he could?

A citizen scientist thought they had discovered a brand new asteroid, but it turned out to be a certain billionaire's car. (Photo by SpaceX via Getty Images)

Well, that faked poor HA Güler and, for a little bit at least, the Minor Planet Center, which has since deleted 2018 CN41.

Poor HA Güler.  The fella thought he had discovered an asteroid. Well, he'll have to crane his neck to the heavens and find something else, which is harder than it seems like it should be considering there's a lot of stuff in outer space. 

So much that you'd think you could kind of look in any direction and find some little pin-pricks of light and start pointing them out until you find one that no one has seen before.

"Is that something new?

"No."

"How about this thing?"

"Nope, that's a plane."

"Alright, then how about this little moving light?"

"I think that's new."

"Perfect, then I'd like to name it: Matt's Comet…"

"It's not a comet though--"

"I said it's name is Matt's Comet, dammit!"