George Mary Searle
(June 27, 1839 – July 7, 1918)
American astronomer and Catholic priest.

On this day in 1858, he discovers the asteroid 55 Pandora. from the Dudley Observatory near Albany, NY. It was his first and only asteroid discovery.

55 Pandora is a fairly large and very bright asteroid in the asteroid belt. Named after the first woman in Greek mythology, who unwisely opened a box that released evil into the world.

This object is orbiting the Sun with a period of 4.58 years, a semimajor axis of 2.76 AU, and an eccentricity of 0.14. Its orbital plane lies at an angle of 7.2° to the plane of the ecliptic.

Photometric observations of this asteroid at the Rozhen Observatory in Bulgaria during 2010 gave a light curve with a period of 4.7992 hours and a brightness variation of Δm=0.22 mag. This is consistent with a period of 4.804 hours and an amplitude of 0.24 obtained during a 1977 study. It has a cross-sectional size of 66.7 km.