Discovered by György Kulin at the Konkoly Observatory in 1936, the asteroid was later named for the Romanian city of Salonta, the birthplace of the discoverer.

[3] In 2007 and 2008, three rotational lightcurves of Salonta were independently obtained from photometric observations by astronomers Brian Warner, Pierre Antonini and René Roy.

[12][13][a] In 2016, a lightcurve of Salonta has also been modeled using data from the Uppsala Asteroid Photometric Catalogue, the Palomar Transient Factory survey, and from individual observers.

Modelling gave a concurring sidereal period of 8.86985 hours as well as two spin axis of (223.0°, 18.0°) and (57.0°, 35°) in ecliptic coordinates (λ, β).

[5][6][7][8][9][10][11] The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link adopts the results obtained by IRAS, that is, an albedo of 0.0339 and a diameter of 62.90 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 10.3.