Asteroid Named After Douglas Adams

tc writes "MSNBC is reporting that an asteroid has been named after Douglas Adams of Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy fame. Fittingly, the asteroid carried the provisional designation 2001 DA42, thus commemorating the year of his untimely death, containing his initials, and incorporating the famous answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. This seems like a fitting tribute to me."

Comments

What else to say ?

[tibike77]

Rest in peace, man who made me laugh hardest ever - we don't need an asteroid named after you, but it sure sounds nice to hear somebody else cares.

Re:I always liked Douglas Adams

[erlando]

Because he was funny?

Fitting tribute?

[kaedemichi255]

To have your death year, initials, and famous number permanently tied down to a big chunk of ice and rock floating in space, unbeknownst to most people, is a fitting tribute? I guess if by asteroid, they mean the moon, then it could be more "fitting"... otherwise, I personally wouldn't even find such a "tribute" very flattering if it were named after (things associated with) me.

Re:Fitting tribute?

[gl4ss]

you think it would be fitting to name _the_ moon after a comedy writer?

It's a pretty good tribute - it's the kind of tribute that stays in the charts for a looooooong time after most people who enjoyed his books are dead.

wtf would you consider to be flattering then? you'd need one billion guys chanting your name or what? a page in a newspaper(which would be fame for a day only)?

I don't think that he was the kind of an asshole that would have wanted people tributing their whole lives to him - and would rather have enjoyed such more subtle and 'eternal' mentions.

Re:I always liked Douglas Adams

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, he was a big admirer of P. G. Wodehouse. The 'certain segments of the population' which you cite tend to appreciate that type of humor.

Are you retarded or something?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a museum glorifying Douglas Adams? Or a towering monument in his honor? Or if all of his fans gave $100 to his family?

There are tons of things that are more fitting than to have your name attached to some dead rock floating in space.

Give $100 to his family?

The asteroid naming is meant as a tribute dumb-shoe - not as welfare....

Re:Are you retarded or something?

[Anonymous Coward]

Give $100 to his family?

The asteroid naming is meant as a tribute dumb-shoe - not as welfare....

And if his family are getting any royalties from his books and any derived works, I think they're probably able to pay the bills on their own...

timing

[trs9000]

This is great and I'm sure he would've appreciated it, but that's what I find strange. Why don't we make more efforts to do these things while people are alive. I mean, once they are dead, we are basically doing it for ourselves, "Oh, yeah, remember Adams and his books?" or maybe his family. But those who we are commemorating never get to experience what we are trying to express, which is overwhelming appreciation.
I think maybe we should try to do more retrospectives of those still with us. Who has lived a full life and made major contributions to our understanding, knowledge or culture. Then, give them an asteroid. Things like this are done, no doubt. Just something that struck me.

Re:timing

[jesterzog]

This is great and I'm sure he would've appreciated it, but that's what I find strange. Why don't we make more efforts to do these things while people are alive.

Are you sure this doesn't happen already and you're just not noticing it? It's not as if Douglas Adams wasn't recognised in many other ways before he died, and this is just ongoing.

Having an asteroid named after you isn't all that big-a-thing, either, and he probably only got it now because it took this long for someone to notice that he didn't already have one. Douglas Adams is mostly getting noticed for it because people already knew him.

That said, I have at least one friend (an applied mathemetician, though not particularly well-known) who has an asteroid named after him. It's more because he happens to know the right people than anything else. The discoverers needed new names for their most recent asteroids they'd discovered, and so decided to name one after him.

Today there are on the order of a hundred thousand asteroids known, most of which only have catalogue numbers. The discoverers can choose to name them whatever they like, but if you're discovering thousands every year, it just becomes too time consuming.

Re:Oh jeez

[kid-noodle]

Bad form, to reply to trolling ACs... but I'm grouchy this morning, and you've pissed me off.

Fuck off, and die in a rat hole. Really. Douglas Adams touched a lot of people's lives, and a lot of us were deeply saddened by his death.

I understand that you're rolling along fine, repressing your feelings of loneliness and inadequacy, until they form a bitter ball of bile that splashes out into trolling, without the fucking balls to even do it without hiding away like a coward.

Some people however are a touch better adjusted, and feel comfortable expressing actual feelings about people they care about. Douglas Adams was, apart from being a great author and a lot of other things, a really nice guy. (Guess what, you're allowed to care about people of the same sex, and it doesn't make you gay! Amazing isn't it!)

Returning to my main point - fuck off and die in a rat hole. And now I need my coffee.

Re:Perhaps a more fitting tribute?

[kaveat]

I think the most fitting tribute possible would be for the upcoming HHGTTG movie not to be absolute crap. Aside from that, this is quite a tribute from astronomers, being as they don't quite have the resources to manage your other suggestions. Have to work with what you have at hand and such.
Didn't someone name a new species of beetle after DNA a year or so ago? If so QED. If not... I wish I knew why I thought so...

DNA off by one?

[Gallowsgod]

Slightly offtopic, but considering the topic it seems pretty appropriate:

Am I the only one who thinks that the answer to life the universe and everything has to be an off-by one error?

If the answer is 43 this suddenly gives a lot of meaning. 43 represented in hex is 2B. And if the answer is 2B then the question gives it self and it all suddenly makes all the sense in the world.

MOD PARENT UP

[Gallowsgod]

I really fear what Hollywood could do to one of the greatest storys ever told. It could easily turn out to be a disgrace.

Re:Perhaps a more fitting tribute?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to post this AC because I'm drunk and I know I'll get +troll for it, but I think I speak for a fair number of people here when I say...

STFU, idiot.

Re:Perhaps a more fitting tribute?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you learnt nothing? If we banish the telephone sanitisers we'll lead full, rich, and happy lives until we're all suddenly wiped out by a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone.

...and so adequately described!

[etwills]

Fittingly, the asteroid carried the provisional designation 2001 DA42, thus commemorating the year of his untimely death, containing his initials, and incorporating the famous answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything.

Perhaps more fittingly, it was described as "relatively unremarkable". Sounds vaguely familiar... ;)

Re:Mostly harmless

[Mercano]

It's a relatively unremarkable space rock, orbiting 224 million miles (358 million kilometers) from the sun in the main asteroid belt, between Mars and Jupiter.

In Adams terms, "It's a relatively unremarkable space rock, orbiting 224 million miles from an unregarded yellow sun far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the galaxy."

Re:Enlighten me please..

[sgtrock]

Geeez. The whole POINT to the question was that we got the answer wrong! THAT was the joke.

(shaking head, muttering) Some people could spoil anything....