I finally learned how to make things (like a star or planet's atmosphere) glow in blender! It seems kind of simple in hindsight, since it was hidden behind a single checkbox called bloom, but it's been a serious limitation for me for quite a while now. Now I can do stuff involving stars or things like this!
Note: the Mars texture is from: https://www.solarsystemscope.com/textures/ . Everything else I did in blender.