Discovered on 18 February 1874 by German–American astronomer Christian Peters at the Litchfield Observatory near Clinton, New York,[1] it was named after the Teutonic and Scandinavian goddess of fertility, Hertha, also known as Nerthus.

As early as 1904, G. W. Hill reported observations of Hertha's brightness indicating a variation of half a magnitude and a short period.

[16] Although Hertha has long been classified as an M-type asteroid based on its spectral properties, observations carried out by Rivkin et al. in 1996 using the IRTF at Mauna Kea Observatory have raised the possibility of reclassification.

The presence of a dip in the observed spectrum at 3 μm indicates that the surface is hydrated, suggesting that Hertha should be reclassified as a W-type (a "wet M-type") asteroid.

[17] Based on work carried out by Salisbury and Walter, the Rivkin study estimated the water content of the asteroid to be between 0.14 and 0.27 percent by mass.

[17] A more recent study by Rivkin et al. published in 2002 examined the dependence of spectral absorption on the asteroid's rotational phase.