Chaos was discovered in 1998 by the Deep Ecliptic Survey with Kitt Peak's 4 m telescope.

Occultations suggest it is a compact or contact binary equivalent to a sphere 400 to 500 km in diameter.

[10] Another occultation was recorded on 14 January 2022; full results on size, shape, geometric albedo, and the spin-axis orientation have not been released[needs update].

[13] It is named after the primeval state of existence in Greek mythology, from which the first gods appeared.

Currently, the closest approach possible to Neptune (MOID) is 12.5 AU (1.87 billion km).