Kenos is asteroid #2449 and also known as 1978 GC. Kenos is of the type E. Kenos was discovered by the American astronomer William Liller at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile. Keno is an asteroid of the Inner Asteroid Belt (the proximal section of the Asteroid Main Belt). Keno’s orbit is characterized by a semi-major axis of 1.91 Astronomical Units, an eccentricity of 0.17, a period of revolution of 964 days, and an inclination of 25.0 degrees. Kenos is a Mars-orbit-crosser and a member of the Hirayama-family Hungaria.

Kenos is named after a figure from the mythology of the Selk’nam, who were a tribe of Native Americans living on Tierra del Fuego. The tribe is extinct and the mythology only known in a rough outline. The Selk’nam were monotheists and acknowledged only Temáukel as the only true god. The Selk’nam nevertheless also believed in the howenh or hóowin, who are immortals and have divine powers. The howenh are phenomena of nature like the Greek gods. In difference to them, the howenh were sent by Temáukel from the Celestial Dome to the early Earth and got the mission to organize it and to create humans. The howenh were so-to-say terraforming the Earth and lived like human beings. Then they created human beings as their own images, but turned themselves into the natural phenomena. There also is a Greek word kenós (κενός) with the meaning null; worthless, empty, but has nothing to do with the Kenos after whom this asteroid is named. This Kenos has been the first of the howenh and hence is himself venerated as creator, although he only invented the human being, language, civilization, and moral rules. Kenos then turned into the eastern sky, also called Wintek. It symbolizes all seasons of the year, the weather, and the seat of Temáukel. Most of the authors, who describe Kenos, emphasize that he did create male and female organs for the human beings. So the howenh themselves, including Kenos, should be unisex and as immortals with divine powers had no need for reproduction.

Creator deities from the mythology of different peoples lend their names to cubewanoes in the Kuiper Belt. Kenos is much less divine, acknowledged as the ancestor of human beings, as well as an asteroid much closer to Earth and hence much more caring about what happens on the material plane. While cubewanoes reveal other worlds, Kenos tells something about the real world. The first of the howenh is said to be a terraformer, so the asteroid Kenos is a representative of pioneers in cultivation.