Cornelis Johannes van Houten
Cornelis Johannes van Houten was a Dutch astronomer, sometimes referred to as Kees van Houten.Born in The Hague, he spent his entire career at Leiden University except for a brief period as research assistant at Yerkes Observatory. He received his undergraduate degree in 1940, but World War II interrupted his studies and he did not get his Ph.D. until 1961.Family
He married fellow astronomer Ingrid Groeneveld and together they became interested in asteroids. They had one son, Karel.Work as astronomer
In a jointly credited trio with Tom Gehrels and Ingrid, he was an extremely prolific discoverer of many thousands of asteroids. Gehrels did a sky survey using the 48-inch Schmidt telescope at Palomar Observatory and shipped the plates to the van Houtens at Leiden Observatory, who analyzed them for new asteroids. The trio are jointly credited with several thousand discoveries. When the orbit of an asteroid is determined, it can be classified as an Apollo asteroid, an Amor asteroid or a Trojan asteroid.
He also studied the radial velocities of close binary stars. He never retired, but remained active and published articles until his death, on asteroids and eclipsing binaries. The main-belt asteroid
1673 van Houten was named in his honor.
