Asteroid 55 Pandora received its official name in 1858.
55 Pandora is a large asteroid in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It was discovered by American astronomer George Mary Searle on September 10, 1858, at the Albany Observatory in New York. The object was later numbered 55 and named Pandora after the figure from Greek mythology.
The mythological name reflects a long astronomical tradition of naming minor planets after figures from classical mythology. Pandora’s astronomical identity is separate from the jar story itself: the asteroid is a rocky Solar System body, not a symbolic container or a literary character.
Asteroid designations combine a permanent number with a name. The number 55 records its place in the sequence of numbered minor planets, while Pandora is the chosen proper name. It is sometimes confused with Pandora, a moon of Saturn, but the asteroid and moon are different objects discovered more than a century apart.