Coral

Coral is a Human occupied colony in a system 42 lightyears from Earth. It presumably orbits the star HD 40307, which is known to possess three large "Super-Earth" planets.

At an unknown date, a Coral mining operation uncovered the tip of a Forerunner installation. The miners used explosives to excavate a depth of 30 meters, uncovering the undamaged tip of the installation. Archaeologists in the employ of ONI were able to dig out about eighty meters of the complex, which seems to be even more expansive. The complex has been described as made from metallic crystal, symmetrical to a near-atomic scale, and adorned with decorative artistic motifs.

In late September of 2552, it was reported that Coral had been glassed by the Covenant. The fate of the Forerunner installation remains unknown.

Trivia

 * The Halo novel Ghosts of Onyx had a working title of "Ghosts of Coral". This led to a great deal of speculation about Coral and its background. However, it turned out to be unrelated.
 * Coral is the home planet of Kamal Zaman and Sophia Bossedon in the I Love Bees saga.
 * The only known residents of Coral, Kamal and Sophia, speak about their families forbidding them to eat pork. In addition Kamal's surname (Zaman) is common in peoples of Muslim descent. Therefore it is quite possible that Coral has a significant (perhaps even a majority) Muslim population.
 * Coral is further from Earth than Harvest.
 * A UNSC ship traveling through slipstream space at 2.65 lypd (light years per day) would only take about 16 days to reach Coral from Earth, a Covenant ship however traveling at 915 lypd would only take .05 percent of a day to reach Coral from Earth.