Endor

Endor is a habitable moon orbiting a gas giant with the same name. It has large stretches of thick forests with plentiful wildlife, including the massive Gorax. It is also homeworld of the neolithic Ewoks. It was notable for being the construction site of the Second Death Star and the scene of the Battle of Endor.

Man, that burns.

Endor Holocaust

During the Battle of Endor, the second Death Star -- an object hundreds of kilometers in diameter -- was destroyed in relatively close proximity to the planet. The result of such an event would be a rain of debris more massive than the one that hit Earth during the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event that famously wiped out the dinosaurs.

For unknown reasons, however, debris from the Death Star's explosion did not cause serious damage to Endor's biosphere. Explanations advanced for the survival of the Ewoks include the following:

• The Rebel Alliance ships in orbit above Endor somehow intervened to stop the debris.
• While the mechanism that projected the shield to surround the Death Star was destroyed, the planetary shield itself remained, which protected the moon from the incoming debris. This would also explain the fact that the planet's surface wasn't incinerated the minute the Death Star exploded.

References

• Endor on Starwars.com
• Gorax on Starwars.com
• Endor Holocaust on Theforce.net by Curtis Saxton