It was discovered on 23 June 1957 by American astronomer Seth Nicholson at the Palomar Observatory in California and later named after the Spartan King Menelaus from Greek mythology.
It is located in the leading Greek camp at the Gas Giant's L4 Lagrangian point, 60° ahead of its orbit (see Trojans in astronomy).
[13]: 9 In this publication, the Menelaus clan encompasses a dozen clusters if the separation criteria used in the HCM analysis are sufficiently relaxed.
The principal bodies of these proposed family-like clusters include: 1647 Menelaus, 3548 Eurybates, 1749 Telamon, 12973 Melanthios, 13062 Podarkes, 5436 Eumelos, 2148 Epeios, 4007 Euryalos, 4138 Kalchas, 3063 Makhaon and others.
The discoverer followed the convention to name bodies located in the camp to the east of Jupiter after famous Greek heroes.
[9][10] The Palomar Transient Factory in California obtained a rotational light curve of Menelaus from photometric observation in the R-band in October 2010.
[9][17] In February 2014, a refined period of 17.74±0.01 hours with an amplitude of 0.15 magnitude was determined by American astronomer Robert D. Stephens at the Center for Solar System Studies (U=3-).