庆祝哈勃望远镜20周年生日

        "Hubble is undoubtedly one of the most recognized and successful scientific projects in history," said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

　　美国宇航局科学任务委员会副主席艾德·维勒说：“哈勃太空望远镜无疑是史上最受认可、最为成功的科学项目之一。

　　From its unique perch some 570 kilometers (353 miles) above Earth, the telescope is our eye on the cosmos, snapping pictures of more than 30,000 celestial objects, some of them located on the far ends of the universe.

　　哈勃望远镜地处地球上空约570公里（353英里）处，被视为人类探测宇宙的“眼睛”。目前，它已拍摄到三万多个天体的照片，其中一些天体远在宇宙尽头。

　　The quality of Hubble images is 10 times clearer than pictures from the most powerful ground-based telescopes, because it is beyond the Earth's atmosphere, which distorts the view of ground telescopes.

　　哈勃望远镜所拍摄照片的质量比功能最强大的地面望远镜所拍摄的照片还要清晰十倍，这是因为它处在地球大气层以外，而大气层会使地面望远镜拍摄的图像失真。