Asteroid 55 Pandora was discovered by Hermann Goldschmidt in 1858.
Pandora is a main-belt asteroid, and its name comes from the mythological woman associated with the jar of troubles. Goldschmidt discovered it from Paris on 10 September 1858. The number 55 is its permanent minor-planet designation, assigned as part of the sequence of numbered asteroid discoveries.
The name can cause confusion because several minor planets also carry names from Greek mythology. 52 Europa, 63 Ausonia, and 12 Victoria are separate asteroids with different discovery histories. The designation “55 Pandora” combines the object’s catalog number with its mythological name.
Asteroid naming conventions often draw from mythology, literature, geography, and other cultural sources. The astronomical Pandora is therefore not a physical object connected to the mythical jar; it is a separately named body orbiting the Sun in the asteroid belt.