The asteroid discovered by George Mary Searle in 1858 is officially designated 55 Pandora. It is a relatively large asteroid in the main belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, and its name refers to Pandora from Greek mythology.
Searle discovered the object on 10 September 1858 from the Dudley Observatory in Albany, New York. The number 55 indicates its place in the sequence of asteroid discoveries: Pandora was the fifty-fifth asteroid to receive a permanent number. Its designation is therefore more specific than simply calling it Pandora, since the mythological name has also been used for moons, films, paintings, and other works.
Asteroid 55 Pandora is classified as an S-type asteroid, a category generally associated with stony composition. It should not be confused with Pandora, a small moon of Saturn discovered in Voyager images in 1980. The shared name reflects astronomy’s frequent use of figures from Greek and Roman mythology.