It was discovered by Finnish astronomer Yrjö Väisälä at Turku Observatory in Southwest Finland, on 19 February 1938, and named after reformer Mikael Agricola.
It orbits the Sun in the inner main-belt at a distance of 1.9–2.6 AU once every 3 years and 5 months (1,238 days).
[1] A rotational lightcurve obtained from photometric observations by Czech astronomer Petr Pravec in May 2006, rendered a period of 9 hours with a brightness variation of 0.07 in magnitude (U=n/a).
[a] According to the survey carried out by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's space-based Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, the asteroid measures 4.4 km (2.7 miles) in diameter, and its surface has a high albedo of 0.39,[5][6] while the Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes an intermediate albedo of 0.24 – derived from 8 Flora, the largest member and namesake of this orbital family – and calculates a larger diameter of 5.4 km (3.4 miles).
[3] The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 27 June 1991 (M.P.C.