It was discovered on 3 December 1988, by Japanese amateur astronomers Tetsuya Fujii and Kazuro Watanabe at Kitami Observatory, Japan.
It orbits the Sun in the inner main-belt at a distance of 2.2–2.5 AU once every 3 years and 8 months (1,344 days).
[12] According to the survey carried out by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer with its subsequent NEOWISE mission, Gingasen measures 5.05 kilometers in diameter, and its surface has a high albedo of 0.480,[6] while the Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes a standard albedo for stony asteroids of 0.20 and derives a diameter of 6.68 kilometers with an absolute magnitude of 13.28.
[3] Four rotational lightcurves of Gingasen were obtained by Petr Pravec, David Higgins and Pedro Sada in 2008, as well as from the Palomar Transient Factory in 2010.
The lightcurves gave a well-defined rotation period of 3.624 to 3.628 hours with a brightness variation of 0.11–0.18 in magnitude (U=3/3/3-/2),[4][8][9][a] superseding a previous result by Laurent Bernasconi (U=1-).