What is the official number of the asteroid Pandora, discovered in 1858?
Answer
55 Pandora
The asteroid Pandora discovered in 1858 is officially designated 55 Pandora.
55 Pandora is a large main-belt asteroid named after Pandora from Greek mythology. English astronomer George Mary Searle discovered it on September 10, 1858, at the Dudley Observatory in Albany, New York.
The number 55 records its place in the sequence of numbered minor planets. It is not a mythological number and does not refer to the number of things released from Pandora’s container. Astronomical names often connect scientific objects with figures from mythology, literature, or history.
This asteroid should not be confused with Pandora, a moon of Saturn, or with the fictional world in the film Avatar. Those objects share the name but have different designations and origins.