74 Galatea is a large C-type main-belt asteroid.

[7] Galatea was found by the prolific comet discoverer Ernst Tempel on August 29, 1862, in Marseilles, France.

A stellar occultation by Galatea was observed on September 8, 1987.

Photometric observations of this asteroid made during 2008 at the Organ Mesa Observatory in Las Cruces, New Mexico gave a light curve with a period of 17.270 ± 0.002 hours and a brightness variation of 0.08 ± 0.01 in magnitude.

[4] The spectra of the asteroid does not display evidence of aqueous alteration.