42 Puzzle

[Hawklet]

This puzzle is out of Hitch-hiker's guide to the Galaxy.

How can you get 42 out of this picture (10 solutions):

[JDalla]

There are 42 of them there.

that's one down.

[coltrainSTL]

How many spheres are in the diagram? (42)
Using Interleaved 2 of 5 encoding, what does the bar code on the white sphere on the left read? (777 - or 7*7-7=42)
Considering red-hued spheres (red, purple, orange, black) as a '1' and those without as a '0', what number does each line represent in decimal form? (In binary, each line reads '0101010', or '42' in decimal form.)
What number do the blue-tinted spheres (blue, green, purple, black) spell out? (Similar to a color blindness test.) (42)
What position in the grid does Earth occupy?
What number is represented by Roman numerals spelled out by the yellow-tinted spheres (yellow, orange, green, black) in the first three rows? (XLII)
What is the absolute value of the degree of longitude the Earth is centered on?

this puzzle sucks.