The habitable zone (shown as a translucent green ring) is the range of orbital distances where a planet could sustain liquid surface water, given its star's luminosity. Planets are colored green when they fall inside the zone and blue/red when they orbit too far or too close.
L_star ∝ M_star^3.5 (main-sequence mass–luminosity relation)
r_HZ ∝ sqrt(L_star)
T_eq = T_star · sqrt(R_star / 2a) · (1 − albedo)^0.25
- Star mass — sets luminosity and temperature, which push the habitable zone in or out and change every planet's equilibrium temperature.
- Planet spacing — average orbital gap between successive planets in the generated system.
- Planet count — how many planets orbit the star, each at increasing distance.
- Habitable zone toggle — shows/hides the translucent torus marking the liquid-water range.
This is exactly the logic astronomers use to flag "potentially habitable" worlds like Kepler-186f or TRAPPIST-1e for follow-up study.