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The space race between the United States and the Soviet Union spurred innovations and historic firsts for humankind from Sputnik to the moon landing. However, much of the drive to break through those technological barriers and explore the vast, starry landscape of space was rooted in a desire to display military dominance in space amid the competition and animosity of the Cold War.

Researchers analyzing data from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft have found signs of organic compounds that arose on the surface of Ceres, a dwarf planet one-fourth the diameter of our moon in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The compounds’ origins may provide clues about how life on Earth got started.

In spring 1967, international political tensions were high. The United States and the Soviet Union were engaged in the space race, as well as a nuclear arms race. The Cuban Missile Crisis, less than five years earlier, was still fresh in people’s minds. The war in Vietnam was escalating, as was the U.S. antiwar movement at home. And in the Middle East, Israel and its neighbors were on the precipice of the Six Day War.

Earth has numerous volcanoes, both active and extinct — some of which continue to tower over landscapes long after they finished erupting. On the chilly dwarf planet Ceres, however, scientists have identified just a single volcano — an ice-erupting cryovolcano — raising questions about whether others ever existed there and, if so, what happened to them. In a new study, researchers suggest that Ceres has likely had other volcanoes, but that, over time, their icy slopes have been flattened beyond recognition.