It was discovered on 24 January 1988, by American astronomer Carolyn Shoemaker at Palomar Observatory in California, and later named after German mineralogist Wolf von Engelhardt.
[13] In November 2004, a rotational lightcurve of Engelhardt was obtained from photometric observations by American astronomer Brian Warner at this Palmer Divide Observatory in Colorado.
[5] Due to a couple of supposed occultation and eclipsing events, Warner also suspects that Engelhardt might by a binary system with a minor-planet moon orbiting it every 36.03 hours.
[7] The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link derives an albedo of 0.2489 and a diameter of 9.24 kilometers with on an absolute magnitude of 12.3.
[3] Baltic German geologist and mineralogist Wolf von Engelhardt (1910–2008), expert on impact craters and related mineral metamorphism.