18610 Arthurdent

From Freepedia

18610 Arthurdent is a small main belt asteroid. It was discovered by Felix Hormuth on February 7, 1998. It is named after Arthur Dent, the bewildered hero of Douglas Adams' The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

It has been claimed that there is a strange coincidence associated with this asteroid: its name was supposedly announced the day before Douglas Adams died (11 May, 2001). However, there is some dispute as to the exact date of the announcement. The Discovery Circumstances: Numbered Minor Planets (15001)-(20000) establishes that the name was published in the Minor Planet Circular (MPC) 42677. Alan Boyle states that the MPC was published on 8 May 2001 [1]. Felix Hormuth, who discovered the asteroid, claims that the MPC was published on 9 May [2]; this date is also given by this Czech source. The Guardian reports that the name was published on 10 May [3]. The Minor Planet Center at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory confirms only the date of discovery, 7 February 1998.