the earth was done using a a 3 spheres. The first one i filled with a particle cloud to simulate the earth atmoshpere. The second sphere is with the earth texture, the third one has transparency and it was used to simulate the clouds
step 2 of 5
setup for rendering. I used Mental Ray for this render.
step 3 of 5
the render comming from MR to Photoshop, untouched