It was discovered on 13 May 1971, by Dutch astronomer couple Ingrid and Cornelis van Houten at Leiden, on photographic plates taken by Dutch–American astronomer Tom Gehrels at Palomar Observatory in California, United States.
It is classified as an "inner main-belt asteroid" in the JPL's data base, where it would be labelled a Mars-crosser if it had a perihelion of 1.666 AU or less.
[9] In December 2015, a rotational lightcurve of Nemrut Dagi was obtained by American astronomer Brian Warner at his CS3–Palmer Divide Station (U82) in California.
Lightcurve analysis gave a well-defined rotation period of 3.2754±0.0005 hours with a low brightness variation of 0.08±0.01 magnitude (U=3), indicating that the body has a rather spheroidal shape.
[7] The asteroid was also observed by American astronomer Brian A. Skiff during the Near-Earth Asteroid Photometric Survey (NEAPS) at Lowell Observatory, who obtained a period of 3.233±0.002 in February 2011, which he directly reported to the LCBD (U=2).
[3][4][5][14] A high albedo of 0.30 or more is typically seen among the bright E-type asteroids that are thought to be composed of enstatite, a mineral which is rich in Magnesium sulfite (MgS03).