(15810) Arawn, browsing on the Internet

(15810) Arawn is a classical Kuiper belt object discovered in May of 1994. It reached the perihelion in October of 1995.

The orbit is located in the Kuiper belt. It has a perihelion of 34.71 AU and an aphelion of 44.13 AU. The semimajor axis is at 39.42 AU. It has an orbital period of 248 years. It has an inclination of 3.8º. It has a diameter of about 133 km.

Photometric observations were made in October of 2006. After passing Pluto, the New Horizons probe observed it, from very close approach, in November 2015 and April 2016. In January of 2017, it received its official name.

Orbital resonance:
1:1 with Pluto (99.8%)
2:3 with Neptune (99.6%)


Celtic mythology

Arawn was the king of Annwn, the Land of the Dead in Celtic mythology. For a year, he exchanged his physical appearance with Pwyll, the king of Dyfe. Each of them lived the life of the other during that time.

The king Pwyll, during a hunting day, got into a very dense forest, whose thickness caused him to lose sight of his dogs. He stopped for a moment, when suddenly, appeared a deer that was escaping, pursued by a pack of dogs that were not his own. He was inclined to follow them, but he realized that those dogs were not from this world: they were white, but their ears were bright red. He had entered into Annwn, the Land of the Dead.

After the dogs, came a man on horseback, that stopped in front of Pwyll. Calling him by his name, he said that he would have liked to have participated in the hunt, perhaps then the prey would not have escaped. Pwyll said that he would be willing to do anything to compensate for the loss.

The rider was presented as Arawn, king of Annwn, and he proposed that within a year he would fight in duel against his enemy, because a curse prevented him from doing it by himself, which he had appropriated a part of their land. 

Until then, each one would acquire the physical appearance of the other and also would carry out their daily functions, meeting again in that same place after one year.

Before leaving, Arawn warned Pwyll that he should only give him one blow, because finishing off would make him revive with equal force.

Under the physical appearance of Arawn, Pwyll ruled with justice and without problems, the difficult thing came at the end of each day, when he had to remain firm in the face of the love expression of his beautiful wife.

When they returned to their own kingdoms, they checked and discovered the good management of the other during the last year. However, the surprise came when Arawn returned to his home and made love to his wife, whom asked him what had happened to him, because for a whole year he had not touched her once; then, he told her all the truth.

Both kings sent gifts to each other, and by this legend, Pwyll was called "Lord of Annwn", a title which his son also inherited.


(15810) Arawn is related with the experience of personally exploring options to make a decision about it, like in the movies "Pulp Fiction" (1994), "While You Were Sleeping" (1995), "Family Man" (2000), "Little Miss Sunshine" (2006), "The Devil Wears Prada" (2006) and "Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens" (2015).


Browsing on the Internet

The discovery of (15810) Arawn coincided with the popularization of Internet browsing, based on the exploration of web pages accessing through clicks on images or hypertext links. In the leafing process, chance plays an important role, modifying the criteria of approval or rejection of information, from which the process continues forward with new links, or turns back to continue the exploration in another direction.

Marcia J. Bates, born in the year 1942, is known for her work on information seeking behavior, search strategy, subject access to information, and user-centered design of information systems. She has Arawn in Virgo near the Moon-Node, probably in conjunction.