Most of his later asteroid discoveries were made jointly with the husband and wife team of Cornelis Johannes van Houten and Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld. He did a sky survey using the 48-inch Schmidt telescope at Palomar Observatory and shipped the plates to the two Dutch astronomers at Leiden Observatory, who analyzed them for new asteroids. The trio are jointly credited with several thousand discoveries.
During World War II Gehrels was a member of the Dutch resistance, and he has interviewed surviving political prisoners who were forced to build V-1 and V-2 rockets under the supervision of Wernher von Braun. He has charged that von Braun bears greater responsibility and guilt for harsh treatment of prisoners than his official "sanitized" biography would imply. [1] (http://www.time.com/time/columnist/jaroff/article/0,9565,220201,00.html)
Books
On the Glassy Sea: An Astronomer's Journey, Tom Gehrels, ISBN 0-88318-598-9
TomGehrels: On the Glassy Sea: An Astronomer's Journey
Gehrels' work at observatories and universities in the United States of America, India, Sri Lanka and elsewhere leads him to refelect on the research enterprise as well as more fundamental questions.
With regard to the ongoing efforts of the United Nations, Japan, and Sri Lanka to establish a National Astronomical Observatory at Sri Lanka in 1995, the following is quoted from chapter 19.
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