"Here was a planet, not substantially bigger than Sun/Earth, in a very Sun/Earth-like orbit around a very Sun-like single star, yet absolutely perfectly smooth — a blank slate, an oblate spheroid with an equatorial radius of 7,988 kilometres and a polar radius of 7,966, smooth to as many decimal places as the Ulver's instruments could determine. There was no trace of atmosphere, nor of variation in the pale grey colouring of its surface. There were no mountains, no tectonic plates, no plateaus, no geographical features, nothing."
Added by Phaethon
