3552 Don Quixote is a small Amor, Mars-crossing, Jupiter-crossing, potentially hazardous asteroid. It has a highly inclined comet-like orbit, and measures about 19 km in diameter. Its rotation period is 7.7 hours. It was discovered by Paul Wild in 1983, and is named after the comic knight who is the eponymous hero of Cervantes' Spanish novel Don Quixote (1605).
Don Quixote is suspected to be an extinct comet. Don Quixote is frequently perturbed by Jupiter.
Famous quotes containing the words don quixote, don and/or quixote:
“When you think of the huge uninterrupted success of a book like Don Quixote, you’re bound to realize that if humankind have not yet finished being revenged, by sheer laughter, for being let down in their greatest hope, it is because that hope was cherished so long and lay so deep!”
—Georges Bernanos (1888–1948)
“Rather would I have the love songs of romantic ages, rather Don Juan and Madame Venus, rather an elopement by ladder and rope on a moonlight night, followed by the father’s curse, mother’s moans, and the moral comments of neighbors, than correctness and propriety measured by yardsticks.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“The treason pleases, but the traitors are odious.”
—Spanish proverb, pt. 1, bk. 4, ch. 7, quoted in Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote (1605, trans by P. Motteux)