I was flipping through Bruce Felton's  "One of a Kind: A Compendium of
Unique
People, Places, and Things" the other day.  One section discusses the naming
of asteroids.  In particular, the author points out that Herbert Hoover is
the
only U.S. president to have an asteroid named after him.  In the preamble to
this section, Felton lists some other famous people who have had asteroids
named after them, among them MARK TWAIN!  This was news to me, so I
attempted
to verify the story with an astronomer.  It turns out that Minor Planet 2362
was named for Mark Twain in 1976.

According to an official with NASA, Asteroid Mark Twain was discovered on
September 24, 1976 by N. Chernykh at the Nauchnyj Observatory.

I'm not a Twainian, so this isn't something I would have heard about through
other sources.

Did anyone know about this prior to reading about it here?  Please reply to
the list.

Rick Broadhead
York University