Paper detail

Calculating the Habitable Zone of Multiple Star Systems (http://astro.twam.info/hz)

We have developed a comprehensive methodology and an interactive website for calculating the habitable zone (HZ) of multiple star systems. Using the concept of spectral weight factor, as introduced in our previous studies of the calculations of HZ in and around binary star systems, we calculate the contribution of each star (based on its spectral energy distribution) to the total flux received at the top of the atmosphere of an Earth-like planet, and use the models of the HZ of the Sun to determine the boundaries of the HZ in multiple star systems. Our interactive website for carrying out these calculations is publicly available at http://astro.twam.info/hz . We discuss the details of our methodology and present its application to some of the multiple star systems detected by the Kepler space telescope. We also present the instructions for using our interactive website, and demonstrate its capabilities by calculating the HZ for two interesting analytical solutions of the three-body problem.