I think particles are prolly your best bet if you want it to look nice.
I suppose you could also add a semi-transparent sphere around your planet but it won't look as good. Although it's a lot easier to do:
`Set your display mode to a decent resolution, I'm using 800x600 because it's compatible and I dunno your hardware
SET DISPLAY MODE 800, 600, 32
AUTOCAM OFF
POSITION CAMERA 0, 0, 0, 0
ROTATE CAMERA 0, 0, 0, 0
MAKE OBJECT SPHERE 1, 0.5
COLOR OBJECT 1, RGB(250, 150, 150)
POSITION OBJECT 1, 0, 0, 10
MAKE OBJECT SPHERE 2, 0.8
POSITION OBJECT 2, 0, 0, 10
GHOST OBJECT ON 2
WAIT KEY
As you can see, it's not really that great looking. Particles are better.
Quote: "Setting the object emissive does not help"
I've never used this particular command but according to the help, it seems this is more for an object's "independant lighting", ie it adds lighting to the object irrespective of ambient light, etc.
Hope this helps.