Which astronomer discovered the asteroid 55 Pandora, named after the Greek mythological figure?

George Mary Searle discovered the asteroid 55 Pandora, named after the Greek mythological figure.

Searle discovered Pandora on September 10, 1858, at the Dudley Observatory in Albany, New York. The object was later numbered 55 in the asteroid catalogue and received the name Pandora, connecting nineteenth-century astronomy with a famous figure from Greek mythology.

55 Pandora is a main-belt asteroid, meaning that it travels around the Sun in the broad region between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter where most known asteroids are found. It is not the same object as Pandora, one of Saturn’s moons, despite sharing the mythological name.

Asteroid names often draw from Greek and Roman mythology, especially during the early period of asteroid discovery. The naming tradition created many pairs of astronomy and mythology facts that are easy to conflate. Here, the key distinction is the discoverer: George Mary Searle found 55 Pandora, while other astronomers are associated with different objects bearing mythological names.