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A small telescope on Mauna Loa captured images Thursday of a Tesla Roadster cruising the cosmos.
The car was blasted into space Tuesday on the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. SpaceX and Tesla are owned by Elon Musk.
The University of Hawaii telescope is known as ATLAS, or the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System. As its name suggests, its purpose is to search for asteroids heading toward Earth.
A twin telescope is located on Haleakala.
UH said ATLAS wasn’t searching for the Roadster but found it during routine observations. It appeared as a small dot moving against a backdrop of stars.