Man who's tracking the Tesla Roadster launched into space reveals if it'll ever hit Earth and confirms when it'll next be visible in space

It’s been more than eight years since SpaceX famously launched a Tesla Roadster into space.

In the years since, it’s been a source of great fascination for people around the world – but how worried should we be that it’ll crash land here on Earth?

Ben Pearson runs the WhereIsRoadster website, which tracks the Roadster’s movements through our universe.

He spoke to Supercar Blondie about whether we should worry about it colliding with us, which other planet it might land on, and whether we’ll get to see it again.

SpaceX made history back in 2018 when it launched this Tesla Roadster into space

It was one small step for man, one giant leap for Tesla on February 6 2018, when a Tesla Roadster was launched into space.

With an astronaut named ‘Starman’ in the drivers seat, the Roadster was strapped onto the back of a SpaceX Falcon heavy rocket.

In the years since, practically every facet of this amazing voyage has been covered, from the soundtrack of David Bowie blasting in Starman’s helmet to the possibility of the Roadster hitting Earth.

And that last point has been of particular interest.

Because let’s face it, none of us like the idea of a car sized asteroid crashing down in our vicinity.

One Turkish amateur astronomer had a bit of a mix-up in which he mistakenly identified the Roadster as an asteroid, before the mistake was rectified.

But we wondered – how much should we actually be worrying about this possibility?

Ben Pearson runs the website whereisroadster.com, which tracks the movements of the Roadster, using NASA data.

Pearson, who is a software engineering manager within the aerospace industry, had long been fascinated by space.

And when he saw the Tesla Roadster being launched into space, he decided to build a website on which people could follow its journey through space.

In the first day it was launched, more than 25,000 people visited the site.

“I’ve just always been interested in space stuff and I thought this is one of the coolest missions that has ever still to this day been launched,” he told Supercar Blondie.

“It’s really the only time we’ve launched something into deep space just because we could.”

So should we be looking to the skies nervously? We put those questions and more to him.

To fret or not to fret? That is the question

“There’s a decent chance that it’ll hit Earth eventually. Is it something we should be worried about? No,” he said.

“It’ll all melt [in the atmosphere]. They actually took out like the batteries and anything remotely sensitive [when they launched it] so nothing would survive.”

Pearson cited a study which looked at various outcomes for the Roadster.

“Hitting Earth was the most likely outcome,” he said.

“The next most likely, oddly enough, is Venus.

“It could also get tossed into the outer part of the solar system, become interplanetary. The odds of it hitting Mars are pretty small.”

The paper said that there was 22 percent chance of the Roadster colliding with Earth over the next million years.

For Venus, that figure was 12 percent – identical to the odds of going into the Sun incidentally.

When can we expect to see the Roadster pass by Earth for us to catch a glimpse?

If you’ve got a telescope on standby, you needn’t hurry for a sighting of the EV.

Because we won’t get a sighting of it until January 11, 2047, when it will pass by Earth at a distance of 4.6 million km.

For the sake of comparison, the Moon is around 384,400 km away.

“[It will be] close enough we should be able to see it with the telescope,” Pearson explained.

So that is just over 20 years away unfortunately.

Funnily enough, if we’d set up a colony on Mars – which Elon Musk has pushed for – we’d be able to see the Roadster much earlier on April 22nd 2035.

At any rate, the Roadster is anticipated to be up in space for a long time, and Pearson’s website will continue keeping tabs on it.

The website has even received recognition from some high-up places.

“Elon Musk has tweeted out the website address several times,” Pearson said.

“I’ve had people from Tesla and SpaceX reach out to me about it too, so they’re definitely aware.”