It was discovered on 19 September 1973, by Dutch astronomer couple Ingrid and Cornelis van Houten on photographic plates taken by Dutch–American astronomer Tom Gehrels at the Palomar Observatory in California.[1] The first precovery was taken at the discovering observatory in 1951, extending the asteroid's observation arc by 22 years prior to its discovery.[1]
As an anomaly, the asteroid did not receive a typical survey designation, although it was discovered in 1973, when the discovering trio of astronomers were conducting their second Palomar–Leiden Trojan survey (T-2).
According to the survey carried out by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's space-based Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, the asteroid measures 41.09 kilometers in diameter, and its surface has an albedo of 0.060,[6] while the Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes a standard albedo for carbonaceous bodies of 0.057 and calculates a diameter of 42.23 kilometers with an absolute magnitude of 10.6.[8]
100+ largest Jupiter trojans
Largest Jupiter Trojans by survey(A) (mean-diameter in kilometers; YoD: Year of Discovery)
Note: missing data was completed with figures from the JPL SBDB (query) and from the LCDB (query form) for the WISE/NEOWISE and SIMPS catalogs, respectively. These figures are given in italics. Also, listing is incomplete above #100.
^ abLightcurve plots of (11252) Laërtes from March 2015 by Robert Stephens at the Center for Solar System Studies (U81). Quality code is 2+ (lightcurve rating at CS3). Summary figures at the LCDB and CS3.