Board Thread:Warhammer 40k Novels/@comment-206.174.85.16-20131013234929/@comment-6078851-20131014181907

if it's a regular planet then issues arise: if the crust is radioactive enough to provide sustainable interplanetary heat then it's almost certainly too radioactive to support life. there's almost no chance of a wanderer keeping any atmosphere - an atmosphere requires a considerable amount of gas/liquid vapour, but the void of deep space would be too cold for it to remain gaseous, thus no storms and no venusian style heat-trap atmosphere (an atmosphere that's intrinsically linked to core heat and proximity to the sun). if a wanderer were to periodically 'swing by' nearby stars it would provide enough heat to unfreeze any potential atmosphere, which would create massive storms, but if it gets too close then any gas/vapour gets boiled away. also the core would remain frozen (unless it gets really close) - the time spent between systems would be far too long for any thawing to be viable, for example: when meteorites make planetfall, despite the heat of atmospheric insertion, their core tempereture is still only a few degrees above zero kelvin.

sorry if it seems like i'm raining on the parade but i'm only pointing out the flaws (as i see them) if it were a normal planet. i too like this idea and if it was a deamon-world then it could very well have the stated features, and would be pretty cool/terrifying.