Asteroid number 55 is named Pandora, after the woman from the Greek myth.
55 Pandora is a large main-belt asteroid discovered by George Mary Searle on September 10, 1858. It orbits the Sun in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and is classified as an S-type asteroid, a category generally associated with stony, silicate-rich composition.
The asteroid’s name follows the long astronomical tradition of assigning mythological names to minor planets. Its designation combines the number 55, indicating its place in the historical sequence of asteroid discoveries, with the mythological name Pandora.
This object is separate from Pandora, a small moon of Saturn. The asteroid and moon share a name, but they are different bodies in different parts of the Solar System and were discovered more than a century apart.