Solar system: Jonti studies the Solar system’s formation and evolution, focussing on the populations of small bodies that hold the clues that allow astronomers to disentangle the system’s ancient history. These include the Jovian and Neptunian Trojans and the Hilda asteroids, dynamically stable reservoirs of small body trapped in mean-motion resonance with one or other of the Solar system’s giant planets. Understanding the structure, stability, and evolution of those populations is vital to piecing together the story of our planet’s systems formation, 4.5 billion years ago.

Exoplanets: Jonti is a key member of UniSQ’s Exoplanetary Science group, searching for alien worlds using UniSQ’s dedicated MINERVA-Australis facility. He uses simulations to investigate the stability of the planetary systems the team discovers, providing a sanity check on new discoveries, and informing the search for additional planets around them.

Astrobiology: Jonti’s is interested in the different factors that could make one planet more, or less, suitable as a target in the search for life elsewhere. His research investigates the way that the potential habitability of ‘Earth-like’ planets could be affected by the influence of the other planets in the same system, and on the impact regimes that planets around other stars might experience.

• Solar system formation and evolution
• Solar system small bodies
• Solar system dynamics
• Planetary Habitability
• Galactic Archaeology
• Exoplanetary Science
• Astrobiology

Prof Horner’s publications can be viewed here