http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorial/galactic_orb/

This is the tutorial I based my project on. Unfortunately the trial version of After Effects is missing many of the effects used by Mr. Kramer on this tutorial so I had to approximate with substitutions on my project - namely the lack of particle simulations and CC Lens effects. I used spherize to approximate the lens effect and foam in place of particles.
In the end my project ended up more like a gelatinous blob than a energetic galactic orb. Oh well.