[2] Inari was discovered on 16 September 1938, by Finnish astronomer Yrjö Väisälä at the Iso-Heikkilä Observatory near Turku, Finland.
[11]: 23 In January 2008, a fragmentary rotational lightcurve of Inari was obtained from photometric observations by French amateur astronomer René Roy.
Lightcurve analysis gave a longer-than-average rotation period of 25 hours with a low brightness amplitude of 0.09 magnitude (U=1+).
[5][6][7][8] The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link derives an albedo of 0.1049 and a diameter of 28.38 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 10.8.
[3] This minor planet was named after Lake Inari (Inarijärvi), located north of the Arctic Circle in Lapland, Finland.