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This one shall pass! Not even a flesh wound from ‘Monty Python’ SPACE ROCK

Comic asteroid set to return in five years, but with no new material

It would probably be a real downer if an asteroid that impacts Earth had a funny name, so Reg readers will be pleased to know that's not going to happen.

Asteroid 13681 Monty Python will is making its closest pass as we speak – but at 2.4 Astronomical Units, or more than twice the average Earth-Sun distance, and it's too far away to feature even on live observatories such as Slooh.

This asteroid was discovered in 1995 and named in 1997, by observers Miloš Tichý and Zdeněk Moravec at Kleť Observatory in the Czech Republic.

NASA gives Monty Python's period as 5.17 years – around five years and 62 days – which strangely coincides with the arguments between Eric Idle and John Cleese over Spamalot royalties. ®

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