Study of Alexandrov's planet making techniques

I've always admired Gleb's planet making techniques and attempted to reproduce one of his artworks to get some insight into how he makes such breathtaking pieces. I learned a lot from this exercise, including how to make those branching arms of energy you see encircling the planet in both our renders. This is a trick I definitely plan on using in future artworks.

Here is his original artwork: https://d1231c29xbpffx.cloudfront.net/store/productimage/13315/image/largef-e73fa330774b0205ed8cf860139bb1a2.jpg