It was discovered on 21 September 1987, by American astronomer Edward Bowell at Lowell's Anderson Mesa Station in Flagstaff, Arizona, United States.
[1] In 1954, a first precovery was obtained at Palomar Observatory, extending the body's observation arc by 33 years prior to its official discovery at Anderson Mesa.
[2] In October 2011, a rotational lightcurve of Aberdonia was obtained from photometric observations at the Palomar Transient Factory in California.
[7] According to the NEOWISE mission of NASA's space-based Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, Aberdonia measures 8.8 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo of 0.25,[5][6] while the Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes an albedo of 0.24 and calculates a diameter of 8.2 kilometers with an absolute magnitude of 12.6.
James Clerk Maxwell and George Paget Thomson are the university's best known former holders of chairs of natural philosophy.