3League

On this day in 2018, a cherry-red Tesla Roadster once driven by Elon Musk on ordinary roads reached the farthest point of its long, looping orbit around the Sun—roughly 154.7 million miles out, past the path of Mars. The same car that used to commute to work had been bolted to the upper stage of Falcon Heavy and sent outward on the rocket’s first flight, February 6, 2018. Behind the wheel sat Starman, a spacesuited mannequin, quietly facing the void. More than eight years later, the Roadster is still out there, endlessly circling the Sun. What was once just another car on Earth’s streets is now one of the most improbable and enduring objects in the solar system—an ordinary vehicle turned into an extraordinary piece of spaceflight history.