On January 2, the Minor Planet Center at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics announced the discovery of asteroid 2018 CN41. Its orbit amazed scientists: the object flew at a distance of only 240,000 kilometers from Earth, closer than the Moon’s orbit, which automatically made it a potentially dangerous near-Earth object (NEO). However, less than a day later, the Minor Planet Center retracted this message – the “asteroid” turned out to be a Tesla Roadster car launched by SpaceX as part of the Falcon Heavy test mission on February 6, 2018.

The incident highlighted a growing problem: a lack of transparency about the trajectories of man-made objects in deep space. In contrast to satellites in low orbits, which are closely monitored, spacecraft beyond these orbits are often not subject to regulation.
Deep Space Challenges
Due to the lack of transparency and regulation, there is an increased risk of artificial objects being misidentified as asteroids. This results in the expenditure of time and resources. According to astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, there is a possibility that billions of dollars could be spent on a mission to an object that later turns out not to be an asteroid.
The Minor Planet Center, which is responsible for processing data on asteroids and comets, has encountered similar problems on several occasions. For example, in 2007, the European Rosetta spacecraft, flying over Earth, was misidentified as asteroid 2007 VN84.

Deep space missions, such as the Japanese-European BepiColombo spacecraft or the American Lucy, also became “pseudo-asteroids”. Among the reasons for this is the lack of a unified database on the trajectory of artificial objects.
Regulation and transparency
Objects in low-Earth orbit are controlled by state and international authorities, and companies are required to publish data on the position of their satellites. In deep space, however, there is little or no regulation. For example, AstroForge, a company that plans to mine metals from asteroids, refuses to disclose information about its target asteroid to avoid competition.
The American Astronomical Society in 2024 called for all organizations to publicly report on the trajectories of objects in deep space and to post this data in public databases such as NASA’s Horizons.
With more launches and missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond, the problem will only get worse. Transparency, coordination, and the creation of a central repository of trajectory data are critical to the safety of both scientific missions and the protection of Earth from potential threats.
Earlier we reported on how the Earth planned to defend itself from uninvited guests from space.
According to astronomy.com