Asteroid 55 Pandora, named after the mythological figure, was discovered in 1858. The discoverer was George Mary Searle, an American astronomer who found it at the Dudley Observatory in Albany, New York.
Pandora is a main-belt asteroid, meaning it travels around the Sun in the region between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Its designation, 55 Pandora, reflects its place among the numbered minor planets recognized at the time. The name connects the astronomical object to Greek mythology rather than to the modern idiom about opening a box.
Asteroid 55 Pandora should not be confused with Pandora, one of Saturn’s moons. The moon was discovered much later, in 1980, and received the same mythological name. Astronomical naming often reuses figures from classical mythology, so the number and object type are important when identifying which Pandora a question means.