Malterra was a minor planet that was located within the Tython system of the galaxy's Deep Core region. The small world experienced violent storms when it passed the planet Sunspot in its orbit, and it had an extremely hot climate. More than thirty-six thousand years before the Battle of Yavin, the non–Force-sensitive settlers of the planet Tython colonized Malterra. Millennia later, mining operations had been established on the planet.
Malterra was a minor planet with no moons that was located within the Tython system of the galaxy's Deep Core region, at grid coordinates L-10. The orbit of the small world was the second closest to its sun, Tythos, of all the planetary bodies in the star system, and it was near to the orbital path of Sunspot, the first planet of the system. The two worlds rotated around their common star in opposite directions, however. Scientists speculated that Malterra had originated in the Tython system, as opposed to Sunspot, which was thought to be a rogue planetoid that had been captured by the gravitational pull of Tythos. Malterra experienced violent storms when it passed Sunspot in its orbit, and the climate on the small planet was extremely hot.
When the non–Force-sensitive settlers of Tython—the fifth planet of the system—traveled to its neighboring worlds more than a millennium after the year 36,453 BBY, they colonized Malterra. By 25,793 BBY, mining operations had been established on the planet, which were made possible by the use of environment suits. In that year, Ketu—a Temple Master of the mystic Je'daii Order—told the Padawan learners Harun and Resi the history of the Tython system, and mentioned the colonization of Malterra, amid other events.
Malterra was first pictured in the entry for Tython in The Holonet feature of the official website for Star Wars: The Old Republic—a 2011 massively multiplayer online roleplaying game developed by BioWare. The planetoid was depicted in a schematic of the Tython system. Since its establishment in 2008, The Old Republics website has gone through a number of changes, resulting in the removal of some of the features and images that were originally located there, including the aforementioned schematic. Malterra's name and additional information on it were provided in Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi 0, a preview issue of the Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi series of comic books. The issue was published on February 1, 2012, and was written by John Ostrander and penciled by Jan Duursema. The small world was also mentioned in the first issue of the series, which was published on February 15 of the same year.