What did you change in the model?
Labs / Astronomy
The Habitable Zone
The green ring is where a planet could hold liquid water — not so close it boils, not so far it freezes. Drag the planet across its orbit, then brighten or dim the star and see the whole zone slide inward or outward.
Labs / Astronomy / The Habitable Zone
The Habitable Zone
The green ring is where a planet could hold liquid water — not so close it boils, not so far it freezes. Drag the planet across its orbit, then brighten or dim the star and see the whole zone slide inward or outward.
Why it matters
Why explore this?
Astronomy uses patterns in light and motion to explain objects we cannot touch directly. This model lets you change one part of a space system and see what the evidence would look like.
Explore
Try the model
Flux 1.00 S⊕T ≈ 255 KHabitable
Investigate
Questions to test
Predict first, try it in the model, then use what you observe to answer.
What to try
- Park a planet at 1 AU, then crank up the star's luminosity. Why does a once-temperate world suddenly boil?
- Switch to a dim M dwarf. How close does a planet have to huddle to stay in the green — and what might that closeness do to it?
- Can two very different stars both have a habitable zone at the same distance? What would you have to match?
- Does changing only the star's temperature move the zone edges? Why might luminosity matter more than colour here?
- Find the exact orbit where the surface temperature reads 273 K. Is that the inner or the outer edge of liquid water?
Explain
Make sense of what happened
Look for a cause-and-effect rule: what did you change, what responded, and what stayed the same? Astronomers use those patterns to infer how distant systems work.
Check
Before you leave
What visible evidence changed?
What rule could explain that change?
If you can answer all three using evidence from the model, you understand the main idea. If not, return to Explore and change one setting at a time.