Other names Kees van Houten Role Astronomer Nationality Dutch Died August 24, 2002 | Children Karel van Houten Name Cornelis van | |
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Institutions Leiden ObservatoryPalomar ObservatoryYerkes Observatory Similar People Ingrid van Houten‑Groeneveld, Tom Gehrels, Gerard Kuiper, Brian G Marsden, Heinrich Louis d'Arrest | ||
Cornelis Johannes van Houten (February 18, 1920 – 24 August 2002) was a Dutch astronomer, sometimes referred to as Kees van Houten.
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Early life and education
Born in The Hague, he spent his entire career at Leiden University except for a brief period (1954–1956) 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 (on the surface photometry of extragalactic nebulae).
Family
He married fellow astronomer Ingrid Groeneveld (who became Ingrid van Houten-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, and occasionally including fellow astronomer Bernhard Schmidt, 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.
From the statistical properties uncovered it became clear that asteroids fall into certain "families".
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.