149 Medusa is a bright-coloured, stony main-belt

Asteroid belt

The asteroid belt is the region of the Solar System located roughly between the orbits of the planets Mars and Jupiter. It is occupied by numerous irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids or minor planets...

 asteroid

Asteroid

Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...

.

It was discovered by J. Perrotin on September 21, 1875 and named after the Gorgon

Gorgon

In Greek mythology, the Gorgon was a terrifying female creature. The name derives from the Greek word gorgós, which means "dreadful." While descriptions of Gorgons vary across Greek literature, the term commonly refers to any of three sisters who had hair of living, venomous snakes, and a...

 Medusa, a snake

Snake

Snakes are elongate, legless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears. Like all squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales...

-hair

Hair

Hair is a filamentous biomaterial, that grows from follicles found in the dermis. Found exclusively in mammals, hair is one of the defining characteristics of the mammalian class....

ed monster

Monster

A monster is any fictional creature, usually found in legends or horror fiction, that is somewhat hideous and may produce physical harm or mental fear by either its appearance or its actions...

 in Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

.

When it was discovered, Medusa was by far the smallest asteroid found (although this was not known at that time). Since then, many thousands of smaller asteroids have been found. It was also the closest asteroid to the Sun

Sun

The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...

 discovered up to that point, beating the long-held record of 8 Flora

8 Flora

8 Flora is a large, bright main-belt asteroid. It is the innermost large asteroid: no asteroid closer to the Sun has a diameter above 25 kilometres or two-elevenths that of Flora itself, and not until the tiny 149 Medusa was discovered was a single asteroid orbiting at a closer mean distance...

. It remained the closest asteroid to the Sun until 433 Eros

433 Eros

433 Eros is a near-Earth asteroid discovered in 1898, and the first asteroid to be orbited by a probe . It is an S-type asteroid approximately 34.4×11.2×11.2 km in size, the second-largest NEA after 1036 Ganymed, and belongs to the Amor group.Eros is a Mars-crosser asteroid, the first known...

 and 434 Hungaria

434 Hungaria

434 Hungaria is a relatively small inner Main belt asteroid. It is classified as an E-type asteroid. It is the namesake for Hungaria asteroids which orbit the sun on the inside of the 1:4 Kirkwood gap, standing out of the core of the main belt....

 were found in 1898, leading to the discovery of two new families of asteroids inward from the 4:1 Kirkwood gap

Kirkwood gap

A Kirkwood gap is a gap or dip in the distribution of main-belt asteroids with semi-major axis , as seen in the histogram below...

 which forms the boundary of the main belt.

It has also a rather long rotation period of 26 hour

Hour

The hour is a unit of measurement of time. In modern usage, an hour comprises 60 minutes, or 3,600 seconds...

s.