[14] Brucia was also the first of over 200 asteroids discovered by Max Wolf, a pioneer in that method of finding astronomical objects.

Discovered on December 22, 1891, when he was 28 years old, it was named in honour of Catherine Wolfe Bruce, a noted patroness of the science of astronomy, who had donated $10,000 for the construction of the telescope used by Wolf.

[16]: 23  It was an outer Mars-crossing asteroid with perihelion less than 1.666 AU[1] until July 2017.

[17][needs update] Brucia has a synodic rotation period of 9.463 hours (as of 1998).

[4] According to the survey carried out by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, Brucia measures 35.82 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo of 0.1765.