Arthurdent: the new name for Asteroid 18610. On May 10, 2001 (the day before Douglas Adams' death), the minor planet centre of the International Astronomical Union proposed the name for asteroid 18610, discovered in 1998.

Arthurdent was proposed by Felix Hormuth, of the Starkenburg Observatory in Germany, who spotted the space rock. The announcement from the minor planet centre said: "The earthling Arthur Dent is confronted with the adversities of life, the universe and everything in a highly amusing and entertaining way in Douglas Adams's famous five volume trilogy ... "

And isn't there something marvellously Hitchhiker-ish in having a 'minor planet centre'?

"I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle."

In Douglas Adams' The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy books, Arthur Dent is an Englishman who woke up one morning, hung over, to discover that his house was to be demolished that morning to make way for a bypass. By lunchtime he discovers that not only that his whole planet is to be demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass, but that his friend Ford Prefect is from Betelgeuse and not Guildford.

Throughout all five books, Arthur continues to be a fish out of water, a stranger in all sorts of strange lands. The bathrobe and pajamas which are all he has to wear are rather symbolic of his unpreparedness for a universe of two-headed men stealing the woman he wants to date and animals which ask him to eat them for dinner.

Arthur's middle name is "Philip" -- only time this is mentioned in all five books is when Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged visits him on prehistoric Earth for his personal insulting as Wowbagger goes through the process of insulting everyone in the universe individually.