The asteroid discovered in 1858 and named for the mythological Pandora is 55 Pandora. It was discovered by George Mary Searle at the Dudley Observatory in Albany, New York.
55 Pandora is a large main-belt asteroid orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. Its designation means it was the 55th numbered asteroid, while “Pandora” is its official name. Like many nineteenth-century asteroids, it was assigned a name from classical mythology, reflecting the strong influence of Greek and Roman subjects on astronomical naming.
This object is distinct from Pandora, the moon of Saturn. The asteroid is much older in astronomical discovery history, having been found in the nineteenth century, whereas the Saturnian moon was identified through spacecraft images in the twentieth century.