It was discovered on 1 April 1970, by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Chernykh at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Nauchnyj, and named after the Siberian Angara River.

It orbits the Sun in the outer main-belt at a distance of 2.8–3.2 AU once every 5 years and 3 months (1,906 days).

[10] This minor planet was named for the over 1000-mile long Siberian Angara River that drains Lake Baikal.

[11] In December 1983, a rotational lightcurve of Angara was obtained from photometric observations by American astronomer Richard Binzel.

Lightcurve analysis gave a well-define rotation period of 3.67 hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.52 magnitude, indicative of a non-spheroidal shape (U=3).