Elsa is asteroid #182 and perhaps a member of the Hirayama-family Massalia. Elsa’s orbit is characterized by a semi-major axis of 2.42 Astronomical Units, an eccentricity of 0.19, a period of revolution of 1 372 days, and an inclination of 2.0 degrees. Elsa was discovered by the Austrian astronomer Johann Palisa at the Austrian Naval Observatory.

Elsa is named either after Elsa from the opera Lohengrin or after Empress Elisabeth of Austria or after a relative of Admiral Bourgignon, who was the military superior of Johann Palisa, the discoverer of this asteroid. Elsa from the opera Lohengrin is described in my article on the asteroid Telramund. She has nothing in common with Empress Elisabeth of Austria, who was obsessed with maintaining her beauty and was murdered when she was forty-four years of age. She got stabbed in the heart. More asteroids are named after characters from the opera Lohengrin, but they have much higher asteroid numbers due to later discovery. This makes Elsa from the opera Lohengrin unlikely as the eponymous namesake. Empress Elisabeth of Austria is more likely because the asteroid discoverer has been Austrian. But she was nicknamed Sisi. The asteroid discoverer originally had suggested the name Elsbeth, but this was with his consent changed to Elsa. So if commoners didn’t dare to call her by a nickname, then the name wouldn’t be Elsa, but if they dared, then Elsa should be named Sisi. Nothing else, which is named after the empress, is named Elsa. Admiral Bourgignon had requested the naming. This makes a relative of Admiral Bourgignon a likely option. He as an admiral could have had access to the empress, but I don’t find anything on him, so he can’t have played a role in the life of the empress. This makes Sisi as an eponymous namesake of Elsa somehow unlikely. The asteroid Elsa represents unsubstantiated presumptions as well as concretely known alternative candidates.