It was discovered on 12 January 1923, by astronomer George Van Biesbroeck at the Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, in the United States.
[1] This minor planet was named after Forest Ray Moulton (1872–1952), an American astronomer and mathematician known for research in celestial mechanics.
[8] In December 2014, a rotational lightcurve of Moultona was obtained from photometric observations by French amateur astronomer Laurent Bernasconi.
Lightcurve analysis gave a well-defined rotation period of 5.2712±0.0007 hours with a high brightness amplitude of 0.73 magnitude, indicative of a non-spherical, elongated shape (U=3) According to the surveys carried out by the Japanese Akari satellite and the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, Moultona measures between 12.43 and 15.15 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo between 0.147 and 0.315.
[6][5][7] The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes an albedo of 0.24 and calculates a diameter of 14.24 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 11.4.