It was discovered on 30 January 1982, by American astronomer Edward Bowell at Lowell's Anderson Mesa Station in Arizona, United States.

[2] Malbil is a non-family asteroid of the main belt's background population when applying the hierarchical clustering method to its proper orbital elements.

[1] This minor planet was named after American fortepianist and musicologist Malcolm Bilson (born 1935), who gave a recital at the "Asteroids, Comets, Meteors" conference at Cornell University in New York.

[3][10] Data from photometric observation gave a modeled sidereal rotation period of 7.5498 hours and two spin axes at (253°, −74°) and (127.0°, −69.0°) in ecliptic coordinates (λ, β).

[8] Based on a magnitude-to-diameter conversion, its generic diameter is between 5 and 12 kilometer for an absolute magnitude of 13.4, and an assumed albedo in the range of 0.05 to 0.25.