[10] It belongs to the plutinos – a group of minor planets named after its largest member Pluto – as it orbits in a 2:3 resonance with Neptune in the Kuiper belt.

It was discovered on 13 January 2003, by American astronomers Chad Trujillo and Michael Brown during the NEAT survey using the Samuel Oschin telescope at Palomar Observatory.

[4] Though elongated in shape, 2003 AZ84 displays a small lightcurve amplitude due to its rotation axis being oriented nearly pole-on; the variability is mainly caused by albedo features on its surface.

[11][10] The low density of this and many other mid-sized TNOs implies that they have never compressed into fully solid bodies, let alone differentiated or collapsed into hydrostatic equilibrium, and so are highly unlikely to be dwarf planets.

Both bodies have a flat featureless spectrum in the visible and moderately strong water ice absorption bands in the near-infrared, although 2003 AZ84 has a lower albedo.

[1] Simulations by the Deep Ecliptic Survey show that over the next 10 million years 2003 AZ84 will not come closer (qmin) than 31.6 AU from the Sun (it will stay farther away than Neptune).

Light curves obtained by Sheppard at the University of Hawaiʻi's 2.2-meter telescope gave an ambiguous rotation period of either 6.71 or 13.42 hours, with a brightness variation of 0.14 magnitudes (U=2).