This one was fun. I've been looking for a communicative way to express the sheer value of the minerals on the surface of the planet; and I really don't want to risk bogging average viewers down in technical details. I finally decided, hey, why not just show it as something of intrinsic value? Use that sparkle effect? Get people revved up from its basic portrayal?
Then I came up with this dark osmium-like crystal, and it carries itself. This is a bit less comic-book-like than the other video, but they're likely to merge at some point early on, in the initial animatic; not just an exploding asteroid, but a shattered jewel.
The heat wave is a combination of a mist pass and a hand-drawn animated texture, distorting and displacing the UVs of the final image. I like the effect and am likely to make frequent use of it.