jmc

You get a digit $0$ on the end of a number whenever it has a factor of $10$, so the question is really asking, how many $10$s are in the prime factorization of $42!$. Since $10=2\cdot 5$, we need to count how many of each there are. We're going to have more $2$s than $5$s, so we actually only need to count how many times $5$ appears in the prime factorization.

Every time a number is a multiple of $5$, it adds a factor of $5$ to the prime factorization. There are $8$ multiples of $5$ between $1$ and $42$. Now look at $25$. It actually has two factors of $5$. We've already counted one of them, so now we need to count one more. This gives a total of $8+1=9$ times the factor $5$ appears, so $42!$ has $\boxed{9}$ zeroes at the end.