[2] Massinga is a non-family asteroid of the main belt's background population when applying the hierarchical clustering method to its proper orbital elements.
On the same night, it was independently discovered by Russian astronomer Grigory Neujmin at the Simeiz Observatory on the Crimean peninsula.
[5][12] In December 1999, a rotational lightcurve of Massinga was obtained from photometric observations by Robert A. Koff at his observatory in Colorado.
[11] In March 2006, Laurent Bernasconi and Rui Goncalves determined a similar period of 10.7574±0.0004 hours and an amplitude of 0.12±0.01 magnitude (U=3-).
[7][8][9] The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link derives an albedo of 0.2392 and a diameter of 71.47 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 7.9.