171 Ophelia is a large, dark Themistian asteroid[5] that was discovered by French astronomer Alphonse Borrelly on 13 January 1877, and named after Ophelia in Shakespeare's Hamlet.

[7] It probably has a primitive composition, similar to that of the carbonaceous chondrite meteorites.

A 1979 study of the Algol-like light curve produced by this asteroid concluded that it was possible to model the brightness variation by assuming a binary system with a circular orbit, a period of 13.146 hours, and an inclination of 15° to the line of sight from the Earth.

[8] Photometric observations of this asteroid at the Leura Observatory in Leura, Australia during 2006 gave a rotation period of 6.6666 ± 0.0002 hours and a brightness variation of 0.50 ± 0.02 in magnitude.

[9] Ophelia is also the name of a moon of Uranus.