The Marvels of this Modern Age trading card series was published in 1962 by Longacre Press Ltd. and IPC Magazines Ltd. of London. The 12-card series and collector album was included with the March 10, 1962 issue of Eagle: The Top Paper for Boys. The cards were issued in four-card panels. The album cover features an illustration of the Mercury spacecraft that does not appear in the collection.

The series includes an artistic depiction of a Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle (MRLV). The single stage rocket was qualified for human flight by Ham, the first chimpanzee to fly in space. The Mercury-Redstone was used to launch Project Mercury astronauts Alan Shephard and Gus Grissom into suborbital space.

The Explorer 6 satellite was launched into orbit on August 7, 1959. The onboard experiments measured energy levels and micrometeorites in the upper atmosphere. Explorer 6 captured the first photograph of Earth from a satellite on August 14, 1959. The photo was taken over 16,700 miles above the surface of Earth. The blurred image shows a sunlit area of the northern Pacific ocean. The photograph took over 40 minutes to be received by a station in South Point, Hawaii.