It is a member of the Themis family of asteroids that share similar properties and orbital characteristics.

Photometric measurements during 2004–2005 showed a rotation period of 9.2213±0.0007 h with an amplitude of 0.116±0.005 in magnitude.

[5] It is orbiting the Sun with a period of 5.52 yr, a semimajor axis of 3.122 AU, and eccentricity of 0.178.

Erato is the first asteroid to have been credited with co-discoverers, Oskar Lesser and Wilhelm Forster, who discovered it on 14 September 1860, from the Berlin Observatory.

The name was chosen by Johann Franz Encke, director of the observatory, and refers to Erato, the Muse of lyric poetry in Greek mythology.