Tesla Roadster on SpaceX mission makes its first close approach towards Mars

The SpaceX mission to Mars made headway after The Tesla Roadster made its first close approach towards the red planet on Friday at a distance of 0.05 astronomical units, or under 80,46,720 kilometers of Mars.

The Roadstar has travelled enough distance to drive all the world's roads 57.6 times, according to  

Starman, last seen leaving Earth, made its first close approach with Mars today—within 0.05 astronomical units, or under 5 million miles, of the Red Planet pic.twitter.com/gV8barFTm7

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 7, 2020

Within is the Starman, the name given to the mannequin dressed in a space suit who's currently in the driver's seat of the Roadster. 

They were included as payload in the second stage of the Falcon Heavy rocket that took off ground in 2018 and is orbiting around the sun.  

SpaceX took to Twitter to share the exciting bit of information to space enthusiasts. 

Astronomer Jonathan McDowell who works at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, tweeted the details of the physics behind the Roadster's orbiting. 

The stage has passed through the second aphelion of its 0.99 x 1.66 AU orbit and a couple of days ago passed back inside the orbit of Mars. pic.twitter.com/C6b8LffPuy

— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) October 7, 2020

He added that "this time it actually was moderately close, although still well outside the Sun-Mars gravitational sphere of influence."

At the moment, the Tesla car is 7,582,640 km, 0.42 light minutes from Mars, moving away from the planet at a speed of 2,914 km/h.

And if the battery onboard was still working, the Starman has listened to "Space Oddity" 265,037 times since he launched in one ear, and to "Is there Life On Mars?" 357,126 times in his other ear.