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.

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.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk told investors last year that the company was aiming for a 2025 launch of its self-driving service in California and Texas. The company appears to be on track to hit that target. Musk said during Tesla's fourth-quarter earnings call on Wednesday that the automaker is on pace to launch its self-driving service as early as June 2025,