I try to write down the workflow of making that kind of objects 
- Add UV Sphere
2.Now for some randomness: subdivide it 2 or three times and then press fractal( about 70 percent) and then you press rem doubles in the same panel. more you left the vertices, the more shin those “needles” will be. I used 0.300 in limit and 0.000 in threshold.
- Then select all vertices( A-key twice)
- Press E-key, select invidual faces and play it.
- You can make that invidual-thing again, rotate and scale, for example.
The lightning:
To tell the truth, I don’t know why, but I don’t have any lightning in this pic! no lamps, spots or anything. I don’t know is this possible but There aren’t any lights =) Anyways, objects are highly reflective, and they have no textures( they wtf, difficulties with English)
Renderer is Blender internal. I’m surprised it rendered this so good! Good old internal, hah
I’ll post the node setup after I have finished my dinner…
Edit:
Here you go:
Thanks to Marsan for basic idea of nodes.