asteroid
An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...
from the outer region of the
asteroid belt
The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, centered on the Sun and roughly spanning the space between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids ...
, approximately 44 kilometers in diameter.
It was discovered on 3 October 1953, by Indiana University's (IU) Indiana Asteroid Program at
Goethe Link Observatory
The Goethe Link Observatory, observatory code 760, is an astronomical observatory near Brooklyn, Indiana, United States. It is owned by Indiana University and operated by the Indiana Astronomical Society https://iasindy.org/about.html, which eff ...
near Brooklyn, Indiana, United States. It was named after IU president and chancellor
Herman B Wells
Herman B Wells (June 7, 1902 – March 18, 2000), a native of Boone County, Indiana, was the eleventh president of Indiana University Bloomington and its first university chancellor. He was pivotal in the transformation of Indiana Universi ...