It was discovered on 10 January 1986, by American astronomers Carolyn and Eugene Shoemaker at the Palomar Observatory in California, United States.
[2] Van Flandern has been characterized as a common S-type asteroid by Pan-STARRS photometric survey.
Lightcurve analysis gave a well-defined rotation period between 9.65 and 9.89 hours with a brightness variation between 0.52 and 0.61 magnitude (U=3/2/3/2+).
[5][6] The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes an albedo of 0.23 – derived from 25 Phocaea, the family's most massive member and namesake – and calculates a diameter of 4.6 kilometers with an absolute magnitude of 13.9.
[2] Van Flandern also participated in the refinement of the Global Positioning System and published the Meta Research Bulletin for non-mainstream views on cosmology.