[Jeroen]

It has been five years since Elon Musk’s Tesla roadster was launched into space.

I am sure many of you are wondering where it is. Well, as it so happens there is a dedicated website tracking the roadster!

https://www.whereisroadster.com/

Adventures of Starman!
But where is this vehicle? The current location is 203,266,025 miles (327,125,060 km, 2.187 AU, 18.19 light minutes) from Earth, moving toward Earth at a speed of 6,666 mi/h (10,728 km/h, 2.98 km/s).

The car is 280,296,935 miles (451,094,330 km, 3.015 AU, 25.08 light minutes) from Mars, moving away from the planet at a speed of 16,506 mi/h (26,564 km/h, 7.38 km/s).

The car is 136,743,075 miles (220,066,715 km, 1.471 AU, 12.23 light minutes) from the Sun, moving away from the star at a speed of 12,130 mi/h (19,521 km/h, 5.42 km/s).

The car has exceeded its 36,000 mile warranty 70,078.0 times while driving around the Sun, (2,522,809,600 miles, 4,060,069,748 km, 27.14 AU) moving at a speed of 51,882 mi/h (83,496 km/h, 23.19 km/s). The orbital period is about 557 days.

It has achieved a fuel economy of 20,022.3 miles per gallon (8,512.4 km/liter, 0.01175 liters/100 km), assuming 126,000 gallons of fuel

Jeroen

[SKC-auto]

For a moment I thought the question is about Roadster 2 which was unveiled 5 years ago.

[TheRandomGuy]

There's this really cool simulator called "Universe Sandbox" which allows to see, edit and simulate different scenarios about celestial objects and renders them as time passes on.

What happens if moon was twice as big, what happens if earth's orbit was bit shorter, things like that.

In this, there's this preset simulation which shows the exact position of all objects in our solar system at this time.

It always amuses me to see the Tesla roadster in this simulation, in an eternal orbit around the sun, forever and ever.
Some pics from the simulator below.

This is its exact position as of now.

[libranof1987]

I was looking it up, and it doesn't seem like the car was modified to withstand the harsh conditions of space - especially radiation. At least no publicly available information.

Interestingly,

"All of the organics will be subjected to degradation by the various kinds of radiation that you will run into there," Carroll said.

Organics, in this case, doesn't mean the bits of the car that obviously came out of animals, like its leathers and fabrics. Instead, it includes all the plastics in the sportscar and even its carbon-fiber frame.

"Those organics, in that environment, I wouldn't give them a year," he said.

https://www.livescience.com/61680-wi...-in-space.html

Here's another nice read,

In a press conference held after the launch, Musk said he expected the car to be "out there in space for maybe millions or billions of years." But Bell isn't so sure. He said that at some point — perhaps 50 to 100 years from now — it will be "a juicy target for salvage," and someone will mount a new space mission to recapture the Roadster and bring it back to Earth.

"If Elon is still alive," he said, "he might want the car back."

https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science...ace-ncna845566

Who knows, someone might actually want to study the Roadster several years from now - to understand how radiation and long term travel in space affects objects. Especially given mankind's ambition to travel and set up base outside our planet.