The asteroid was discovered on 23 February 1936, by Finnish astronomer Yrjö Väisälä at Turku Observatory in Southwest Finland.
[2] Aksnes is a member of the Hilda family, the outermost orbital group of asteroids in the main-belt, that are thought to have originated from the Kuiper belt.
[10][11] During a photometric survey of Hildian asteroids in the 1990s, a rotational lightcurve was obtained of Aksnes by Swedish, German and Italian observatories .
[7] According to the surveys carried out by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite IRAS, the Japanese Akari satellite, and NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer with its subsequent NEOWISE mission, Aksnes measures between 42.5 and 49.3 kilometers in diameter and its surface has a low albedo between 0.049 and 0.063.
[3] This minor planet was named in honor of Norwegian astronomer Kaare Aksnes (born 1938), a celestial mechanician who worked at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in the 1970s.