Cornelis Johannes van Houten

Cornelis Johannes van Houten ( * 1920 in The Hague; † 24 August 2002) was a Dutch astronomer. Sometimes his name in the literature is also given as Kees van Houten.

Life

Except for a short time as an assistant at Yerkes Observatory in the United States ( 1954-1956 ) van Houten spent his entire career at the University of Leiden.

He married the astronomer Ingrid Groeneveld ( who took the name Ingrid van Houten - Groeneveld ). The marriage showed their son Karel.

Van Houten, his wife and the astronomer Tom Gehrels and made a very successful scientific trio discovered a total of 4329 asteroids as part of the Palomar - Leiden Survey. Gehrels made ​​extensive sky shots with the 48 " Schmidt camera of the Mount Palomar Observatory in the United States. The photographic plates were shipped to the Netherlands and evaluated at the University of Leiden for the determination of asteroids. From the statistical distribution of their orbits showed that asteroids run in groups around the sun.

Van Houten also studied the radial velocities of close binary stars.

Until his death, he published articles about asteroids and eclipsing binary stars. After him the asteroid ( 1673 ) van Houten was named.