Vale

Vale is a planet orbiting the star HD 166. It is the second of three terrestrial worlds in the HD 166 system.

Characteristics
Vale is an archetypal "proto-Earth" with a thick, primordial atmosphere laced with greenhouse gases and water vapor, slowly in the process of becoming Earth-like though the processes performed by primitive microbial life. It is also extremely volcanically active, with massive lava flows that can sometimes be seen from space.

Vale's atmosphere and oceans are somewhat greenish due to an unusual abundance of chlorine created by biological processes, and thick cloud cover renders the surface difficult to see from space, while the continents are brown and barren as plants have not yet evolved. Most life is limited to the seas and coastlines, and does not exist past the unicellular stage.

Vale has three moons, with the largest of similar mass to Mercury, and even posessing a weak, tenuous atmosphere and small lakes of liquid water on its surface.

Etymology
Most believe that Vale was named after the small town of Vale, Oregon, which was nearby to the launch site of Shelter 33, whose occupants colonized the world. Whether this is true or not, however, has since been lost to time.