Planet Creation, wrapping texture around 3D sphere

I am in the process of writing a space game in Visual Basic 6 which generates solar systems of random planets and each planet/moon has it's own unique texture generated by the program to represent the various conditions of the planet. I am in need of a simple to use module that will wrap textures around spheres and show the results in a specificed picturebox including lighting/shadows, rotation, tilt and size. Two textures and spheres would be used, the landscape, and an semi-transparent? cloud/atmosphere layer on a larger sphere. I've attempted to get my head around 3D (and DirectX) but I'm afraid it's beyond me. ## Deliverables The ground texture is generated by the game, but the atmosphere layer would be using a pre-designed image. This image would be greyscale from black to white, where black is totally transparent, and white is solid. This cloud layer would have a colour hue applied to it and then rendered.