5655 Barney, provisional designation 1159 T-2, is a Maria asteroid from the central regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 6.5 kilometers (4 miles) in diameter. It was discovered during the second Palomar–Leiden Trojan survey in 1973, and named for American astronomer Ida Barney in 1994.^[1] The stony S-type asteroid has a rotation period of 2.66 hours.^[4]

Barney is a core member of the Maria family (506),^[3] a large intermediate belt family of stony asteroids.^[10] It orbits the Sun in the central main-belt at a distance of 2.5–2.7 AU once every 4 years and 2 months (1,512 days; semi-major axis of 2.58 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.04 and an inclination of 14° with respect to the ecliptic.^[2]

Barney was discovered on 29 September 1973, by Dutch astronomer couple Ingrid and Cornelis van Houten at Leiden, on photographic plates taken by Dutch–American astronomer Tom Gehrels at the U.S. Palomar Observatory, California. No precoveries were taken prior to its discovery. The body's observation arc begins with its official discovery observation.^[1]

Barney has been characterized as a stony S-type asteroid in the SDSS taxonomy of the Moving Object Catalog (MOC) and by the survey conducted by Pan-STARRS.^[4][8][9]

This minor planet was named in memory of American astronomer Ida Barney (1886–1982), who worked at the Yale University Observatory during 1924–1959. She supervised and significantly contributed to the Yale Observatory Zone Catalog for which the positions and proper motions of a large number stars were measured.^[1] The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 25 May 1994 (M.P.C. 23541).^[12]