It was discovered on 9 November 1980, by British-American astronomer Edward Bowell at Anderson Mesa Station in Flagstaff, Arizona.

It orbits the Sun in the outer main-belt at a distance of 2.8–4.0 AU once every 6 years and 3 months (2,276 days).

[2] As a long-time astrometrist and orbit computer, he discovered comet C/1960 Y1 (Candy) at Greenwich, as well as the minor planet 3898 Curlewis, 3893 DeLaeter and 3894 Williamcooke.

Lightcurve analysis gave a well-defined rotation period between 4.6249 and 4.62516 hours with a brightness variation between 0.50 and 1.05 magnitude (U=3/3/3/3/3).

[10] According to the survey carried out by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, Candy measures 24.517 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo of 0.1067,[4][5] while the Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes a standard albedo for carbonaceous of 0.057, and calculates a diameter of 33.54 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 11.1.