Dudu


Dudu

(religion, spiritualism, and occult)

Dudu, asteroid 564 (the 564th asteroid to be discovered, on May 9, 1905), is approximately 50 kilometers in diameter and has an orbital period of 4.6 years. It was named after a character in Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra. The unusual name of this planetoid (the connotations of which are obvious enough) led to its inclusion in The Asteroid Ephemeris: Dudu, Dembowska, Pittsburgh, Frigga, Batya Stark and Mark Pottenger’s tour de force of astrological humor.

Sources:

Kowal, Charles T. Asteroids: Their Nature and Utilization. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Ellis Horwood Limited, 1988.Room, Adrian. Dictionary of Astronomical Names. London: Routledge, 1988.Stark, Batya, and Mark Pottenger. The Asteroid Ephemeris: Dudu, Dembowska, Pittsburgh, Frigga. San Diego: Astro Computing Services, 1982.Schwartz, Jacob. Asteroid Name Encyclopedia. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1995.