The wannabe asteroid, announced on Jan. 2 as 2018 CN41, is actually a Tesla Roadster launched into space years ago by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. The company sent the car (with a spacesuit-clad mannequin called "Starman" in the driver's seat) into a long orbit around the sun in 2018 as the first payload of the company's Falcon Heavy rocket.

It’s hard to fault a CEO who grows a company beyond $1 trillion in value. Elon Musk managed the feat by upending the automotive market with Tesla’s electric vehicles and extended its lead with broader battery power.

It doesn't matter what Musk really meant with this salute. Robotaxis are exclusively a product for large urban areas, and that population largely didn't like it at all.

Tesla will launch an “unsupervised, no one in the car” robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, in June, Elon Musk said in an earnings call Wednesday. “We just want to put a toe in the water, make sure everything’s okay, put a few more toes in the water, with safety of the general public and those in the car as a top priority,” Musk said.

Catch Tallahassee Astronomical Society’s free planetarium show “February Skies over Tallahassee,” at the Fogg Planetarium on Feb. 1.

In 2018, during the launch of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, Elon Musk sent a Tesla Roadster into space, which later led to some confusion.