dept. Founded in 1947, the Minor Planet Center is the official worldwide authority "for observing and reporting new asteroids, comets and other small bodies in the solar system," reports USA Today. Unfortunately, "What an amateur astronomer recently took to be a newly discovered asteroid turned out to be a Tesla Roadster," The Minor Planet Center didn't initially consider the possibility when the organization announced the discovery on Jan. 2 of the unusual asteroid, complete with an official name: 2018 CN41. But less than 17 hours later, the Minor Planet Center issued an editorial notice that it would be deleting 2018 CN41 from its records... According to the Minor Planet Center's notice regarding the deletion, turns out the object was the Roadster, along with the Falcon Heavy rocket's upper stage.