Thursday, January 27, 2005

Asteroid named for Hitchhiker creator

The week he died, science-fiction humorist Douglas Adams was honored with an asteroid named after one of the characters from his classic “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” Now Adams has his own name in the heavens as well, in the form of asteroid 2001 DA42. Not only does it memorialize the year of Adams’ death (2001) and his initials (DA), but it also referenced the number 42–which is absurdly meaningful in the “Hitchhiker” saga as the “answer to the Ultimate Question.” (The problem was, no one ever knew precisely what the Ultimate Question was.)

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