The asteroid Pandora, discovered in 1858, has the catalogue number 55 Pandora.
55 Pandora is a main-belt asteroid orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. It was discovered by George Mary Searle at the Dudley Observatory in Albany, New York, on 10 September 1858. Its name refers to Pandora from Greek mythology.
The number 55 records its position in the sequence of numbered minor planets. It is not a measurement of size, discovery year, or orbital period. Pandora is classified as an S-type asteroid, meaning its surface is broadly associated with stony, silicate-rich material.
Asteroid Pandora is also distinct from Saturn’s moon Pandora and from the fictional world in the Avatar films. Astronomical catalogue numbers are especially useful here because several unrelated Solar System objects share the same mythological name.