Except for the montes of Mercury and the lunar maria (and proposed for 2 Pallas and 7 Iris), the craters of Šteins are the only features in the Solar System whose names are not derived from proper nouns.

[17] A study published in 2006 by astronomers at the European Southern Observatory showed that Šteins is an E-type asteroid with a diameter of approximately 4.6 kilometers.

[21] In 2012, the photographs of Šteins taken by Rosetta using stereophotoclinometry allowed scientists to determine that the asteroid's dimensions are 6.83 × 5.70 × 4.42 kilometers, which equates to a mean diameter in volume of 5.26 km.

[8] Studying the asteroid with Rosetta space probe onboard OSIRIS cameras shortly before its flyby showed via a lightcurve analysis that Šteins has a rotation period of 6.052±0.007 hours.

[22][20] The results of the rotational lightcurve agree with ground-based photometric observations of Šteins with a period of 6.049 hours and a brightness amplitude between 0.18 and 0.31 magnitude (U=3/3).

[8][10][12][13][23][24][a] A lightcurve inversion also modeled a concurring sidereal period of 6.04681 hours and determined a spin axis at (250.0°, −89.0°) in ecliptic coordinates (λ, β).

Despite the short duration of this encounter (approximately 7 minutes in total), a great amount of data was obtained by the 15 scientific instruments operating on board the Rosetta spacecraft.