In the spring of 2016, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft reached the farthest and most unexplored place in the solar system – the Kuiper Belt. New Horizons’ additional mission task was to study a Kuiper belt object from the flyby trajectory. At the time of the New Horizons launch, a suitable object had not yet been found, it was intensively searched for during the flight of the spacecraft.
Mystery object
Having approached the Kuiper Belt, the probe twice recorded the trans-Neptunian “plutino” (15810) 1994 JR1 moving object, which was named (15810) Arawn in January 2017, the first time from a distance of 274 million km, the second “closer” – from 111 million km.
Arawn is the name given to the dark ruler of the underworld, the king of Annwn in Welsh mythology.
New Horizons managed to capture the fact that the object is moving at a high speed of 4.713 km/s with a diameter of 145 km.
This raises questions – according to calculations, when moving at such a speed, Arawn should have disintegrated long ago if it were an ordinary asteroid or a fragment of some cosmic body, but this does not happen. It was also recorded that Arawn’s glow changes, as if it was “disguised”, suddenly plunged into darkness, as if noticing that it was being watched.
Based on the analysis of the transmitted data, scientists came to the conclusion that, unlike most other known bodies located in the Kuiper belt, Arawn is not made of rocks or ice. It is a much more durable substance, because at such a high speed with which it moves, the object remains safe and sound.
Unexpected failure
Once the probe recorded the strange object, it was discovered that Arawn does not rotate chaotically around its axis, by inertia, but as if adjusting its rotation.
As it approached the strange object’s orbit, New Horizons suddenly broke down, ceasing to record and transmit information.
The reason for the temporary breakdown still remains unclear, therefore, a variety of versions are being considered. The situation is extremely strange and has raised many questions. Did “someone” observe the movements of terrestrial technology and deliberately turned it off? If so, why did this “someone” interfere with the NASA mission?
Unmanned spaceship?
Scientists do not exclude the version that Arawn may not just be a natural space body, but an artificial research probe of unearthly origin, especially when you consider the strange things that happened to New Horizons.
It can be unequivocally stated that if this hypothesis is confirmed, and the probe is inhabited, then the creatures living on Arawn do not look like people.
For someone who would “get inside” Arawn, the rotation speed of the unidentified object would be simply uncomfortable, although, most likely, it can be an automatic “unmanned” probe and it may not be the only one. There are many different, not yet registered objects in the Kuiper belt.
End of the encounter
As soon as the “New Horizons” moved away from Arawn, then in a strange way the equipment worked again. Scientists managed to get pictures of this strange space object. This will make it possible to more accurately understand where exactly it is, to clarify its orbit and other data.
The main question – the structure of this body, the substance of which it consists – is still a mystery. By researching the earth probe has not fundamentally changed the situation according to the data on the object and answers to many questions have not been received.
That is, it may be a sensation, but it may not. Further research will show.
