Cornelis Johannes (Kees) van Houten (The Hague, February 18, 1920 - August 24, 2002) was a Dutch astronaut.
He spent his entire career at the Observatory Leiden, except for the short time (1954-1956) in which he was a research assistant at the Williams Observatory at Yerkes Observatory together with Ingrid Groeneveld and Tom Gehlers. He did his candidacy exam in 1940, but the Second World War interrupted his studies. He did his doctoral degree only in 1952 and graduated in 1961 with a thesis on surface photometry of extragalactic nebulae.
He married astronaut Ingrid Groeneveld and together they became interested in planetoids. They got a son, Karel.
Together with Tom Gehrels and Ingrid, and sometimes with Lewis Daly he discovered many thousands of planetoids. Gehrels conducted a sky survey with the 48-inch Samuel Oschintelescoop at the Palomar Observatory and sent the records to the Houtens Observatory in Leiden Observatory, investigating new planetoids. The trio has found so many thousands of planetoids. It became clear that planetoids can be subdivided into certain families.
Van Houten also studied the radial speed of close double stars. He never retired, but remained active and published articles until his death.
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