Question about planet mapsI

I know in Terraria, if you ran left or right, you would eventually hit the end of the map.

is it the same in Starbound, or does "east meet West", if you understand my meaning?

 

You can run around a planet if you mean that: build a house and go left, you will come back to your house after some time, depending on the size of the planet

 

Basically this.. I like to think of planets as a "cylinder" of sorts with an inaccessible center that is "protected" by a deep lake of lava.. If you run in one direction (left or right), you will eventually return to your spawn point for the planet.. I like to mark the spawn point by digging a 4x4 block under it and replacing it with wood with a campfire placed on top at the center 2 blocks.. This leaves me with an obvious landmark of where I have been.. I also tend to place a torch at cave entrances along the way.. The landmarks you leave behind are entirely up to you..

--TL;DR--

Yes, the planet is round.. Running in 1 direction will eventually bring you back to spawn..

 

and planets are of different sizes, right?

I got to the lava center of my starter planet quickly with this past wipe, but my first starter planet was seemed to have a lot more depth before the lava.

 

In navigation map you can see the size of the planet. This is how deep you can get before you swim in lava and how long it takes you to go around it.

 

I think it takes longer to go around a whole planet on its surface than near the lava but I haven't tested this yet.

 

Yes you can fully orbit your planet (Go west and you will eventually enter the area you started from the east)

Btw wasn't this the requirement for making a planet your home planet? Or was that changed/never existed?

 

You can make a planet your home planet, just go to navigation, make sure you are orbiting that planet, select it and select "Make home planet"
Then you can beam to it by using the pad, no matter where your ship is.

 

I did not know planet was round