Above is a very nice cover with a wraparound element for J.B. O’Sullivan’s 1957 novel Nerve Beat. Digit Books had a high standard for cover art, and a correspondingly low frequency of identifying artists, but this piece is at least signed—Mortimer. We have no idea who that is. Nice work, though. You can see a comprehensive collection of Digit book covers at this link.
1961—Soviets Launch Venus Probe
The U.S.S.R. launches the spacecraft Venera 1, equipped with scientific instruments to measure solar wind, micrometeorites, and cosmic radiation, towards planet Venus. The craft is the first modern planetary probe. Among its many achievements, it confirms the presence of solar wind in deep space, but overheats due to the failure of a sensor before its Venus mission is completed.