Sethos is asteroid #5009 and is also known as 2562 P-L. As this designation already reveals, Sethos was discovered in the course of the Palomar-Leiden Survey of Cornelis Johannes van Houten, Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld, and Tom Gehrels at the Palomar Observatory. Sethos’ orbit is characterized by a semi-major axis of 2.31 Astronomical Units, an eccentricity of 0.16, a period of revolution of 1 282 days, and an inclination of 1.5 degrees.

Sethos is named after the Egyptian pharaoh Sethos I. He was the son of Ramses I. and the father of Ramses II. Sethos I. reigned over Egypt from 1290 B.C. until 1279 B.C. and was part of the nineteenth dynasty. Sethos I. called the first year of his reign the Rebirth of Egypt. He thus alluded to the reign of Ekhnaton and Tutenkhamun, which he did see as the reign of sin or evil, in the ancient Egyptian religion called isfet. The opposite of isfet is maat, meaning order or harmony. To maintain maat was the task of every pharaoh. Sethos I. saw as his task to restore maat. So Sethos I. went on several military expeditions and ordered the construction of several temples. His temple in Abydos survived the tooth of time quite well, so a list of seventy-six previous pharaohs is known from there, skipping only those, who were deemed unworthy in the time of Sethos I. The tale of Sachmet is known from in inscription in the tomb of Sethos I.

So pharaoh Sethos I. is an important source for Egyptian history as well as for Egyptian mythology. Hence the astrological force Sethos is a connection between asteroids of Egypt-related themes. Sethos also represents people, who try to restore a previous order.