It was discovered on 3 May 1997, by Belgian astronomer Eric Elst at ESO's La Silla Observatory in northern Chile.
[6] The majority of Jupiter trojans are D-types, with the reminder being mostly C- and P-type asteroids.
[6] In September 2012, a rotational lightcurve of Aretaon was obtained from photometric observations by Robert Stephens at the Center for Solar System Studies in Landers, California.
Lightcurve analysis gave a rotation period of 8.05 hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.17 magnitude (U=2).
[8] According to the survey carried out by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, Aretaon measures 39.151 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo of 0.073,[5] while the Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes a standard albedo for a carbonaceous asteroid of 0.057 and calculates a diameter of 42.23 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 10.6.