It was discovered on 2 December 1989, by Belgian astronomer Eric Elst at the ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile.
[3][11] In November 2011, a rotational lightcurve of Pasteur was obtained from photometric observations by astronomers at the Oakley Southern Sky Observatory in Australia.
Lightcurve analysis gave a well-defined rotation period of 13.69 hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.28 magnitude (U=3).
[5][6][7][8][9] The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes an albedo of 0.10 and calculates a diameter of 15.98 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 12.1.
[2] The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 21 November 1991 (M.P.C.