It was discovered by French astronomer Alphonse Borrelly on April 10, 1872, and independently by German-American astronomer Christian Heinrich Friedrich Peters on April 11, 1872, then named after Lachesis, one of the Moirai, or Fates, in Greek mythology.

[5] A Lachesean occultation of a star occurred in 1999 and was confirmed visually by five observers and once photoelectrically, with the chords yielding an estimated elliptical cross-section of 184 × 144 km.

[6] This body is orbiting the Sun with a period of 5.50 years and an eccentricity (ovalness) of 0.05.

Photometric observations of this asteroid were made in early 2009 at the Organ Mesa Observatory in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

The resulting light curve shows a synodic rotation period of 46.551 ± 0.002 hours with a brightness variation of 0.14 ± 0.02 in magnitude.