Cybele was discovered on 8 March 1861, by German astronomer Wilhelm Tempel from the Marseilles Observatory in southeastern France.

Tempel had awarded the honour of naming the asteroid to Carl August von Steinheil in recognition of his achievements in telescope production.

The asteroid appeared to have an irregular shape, with the longest chord being measured as 245 km, closely matching results determined by the IRAS satellite in 1983 (see below).

However, it is not certain if Cybele's current shape is its primordial one, or if it is the result of a large impact as on the very round 10 Hygiea and 31 Euphrosyne.

The asteroid may be covered in a layer of fine silicate dust mixed with small amounts of water-ice and organic solids.

[29] On August 24, 2008, Cybele occulted 2UCAC 24389317, a 12.7-magnitude star in the constellation Ophiuchus which showed a long axis of at least 294 km.