It was discovered on 7 March 1943, by Belgian astronomer Sylvain Arend at the Royal Observatory of Belgium in Uccle, and named after his son.
[2][6] Noël is a member of the Flora family, one of the largest groups of stony asteroids in the main-belt.
[1] Between April 2008 and June 2015, five rotational lightcurves were obtained from photometric observations by Czech astronomer Petr Pravec at the Ondřejov Observatory near Prague.
[a] In April 2008, a photometric observation by astronomer Julian Oey at the Kingsgrove Observatory, Australia, gave a concurring period of 3.550±0.002 hours and an amplitude of 0.14 (U=3).
[5] According to the survey carried out by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer with its subsequent NEOWISE mission, Noël measures 7.2 kilometers in diameter and its surface has a high albedo of 0.37,[4] while the Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes an albedo of 0.24 – derived from 8 Flora, the family's principal body and namesake – and calculates a larger diameter of 9.0 kilometers.