Pogson awarded the honour of naming it to William Henry Smyth, the previous owner of the telescope used for the discovery.

[8] 13-cm radar observations of this asteroid from the Arecibo Observatory between 1980 and 1985 were used to produce a diameter estimate of 131 km.

[9] In 1988 a search for satellites or dust orbiting this asteroid was performed using the UH88 telescope at the Mauna Kea Observatories, but the effort came up empty.

[10] Photometric observations made in 2012 at the Organ Mesa Observatory in Las Cruces, New Mexico produced a light curve with a period of 21.040 ± 0.001 hours.

[12][13][14] This older 1997 estimate would give it a density of 14+ g/cm3[12] and make Hestia more massive than several much larger asteroids.