Unidentified comet

A passing comet once impacted Needan, a planet orbiting a single star in the dying Needan system of Wild Space. The collision sent Needan into a wider orbit, on a trajectory rapidly carrying it away from its sun.

The consequent permanently cold and winter-like climate led to the extinction of the majority of species of the planet, which originally featured immense oceans teeming with living organisms as well as jungles on the land portion of its surface. Needan's sentient Geelan species survived the disaster by building and retreating to dome-like habitats. When the Geelan realized, however, that the fuel supply on which their society was relying was rapidly dwindling, the species' scientists began sending out distress signals into outer space, leading to a first contact with the wider galactic community at some point by the time of the Galactic Civil War and the subsequent emigration of many Geelan off their doomed homeworld.

Text and facts from the “Unidentified comet” article on Wookieepedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Modified for this site.