It was discovered by Japanese amateur astronomer Takuo Kojima at the YGCO Chiyoda Station in Japan on 29 November 1988.
[8] According to the survey carried out by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's space-based Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, Akasofu measures 4.5 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo of 0.32,[4][5] while the Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes an intermediate albedo of 0.24 – which derives from 8 Flora, the largest member and namesake of this orbital family – and calculates a diameter of 5.7 kilometers with an absolute magnitude of 13.4.
[3] In October 2005, a rotational lightcurve of Akasofu was obtained from photometric observations made by David Higgins at Hunters Hill Observatory, Australia.
[6] Observations by Czech astronomer Petr Pravec in March 2007, gave another well-defined and concurring lightcurve with a period of 2.6800 hours and an amplitude of 0.15 in magnitude (U=3).
[a] This minor planet was named in honor of Japanese-born geophysicist Syun-Ichi Akasofu (born 1930), professor at University of Alaska Fairbanks.