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August 24th marks the 25th anniversary of one of NASA's greatest achievements: the first flyby of Neptune.
今年的8月24日是NASA最偉大一次壯舉的25周年紀念:這就是探測器，旅行者2號飛船首次飛越海王星。
At 2.8 billion miles from the sun, it's the farthest planet ever to pose for a close-up.
海王星距太陽約28億光年，曾經(jīng)是太陽系范圍內(nèi)距離最遠的星球。
You can thank the Voyager 2 spacecraft for the close encounter.
而旅行者2號飛船曾經(jīng)同海王星進行了一次親密接觸。
Launched in 1977, Voyager 2 sped past Jupiter in 1979, Saturn in 1981, Uranus in 1986, and Neptune in 1989.
旅行者2號飛船于1977年啟航，在1979年飛過木星，1981年飛過土星，1986年飛過天王星后，1989年從距海王星上空掠過。
Voyager discovered that a large dark spot marked the face of the giant blue planet.
旅行者2號發(fā)現(xiàn)這顆巨型的藍色星球外有個很大的黑色斑點。
It also quadrupled the number of Neptune's known moons from two to eight.
它的發(fā)現(xiàn)將已知海王星的2顆衛(wèi)星提升4倍，最終變成了增至8顆的總數(shù)。
New discoveries have since raised that number to 14.
而現(xiàn)在最新發(fā)現(xiàn)已經(jīng)變?yōu)?4顆。
The largest and most intriguing moon is Triton.
其中最大且最為復雜的衛(wèi)星是Triton。
Voyager discovered that, like Earth, Triton has an atmosphere, mostly of nitrogen.
旅行者2號發(fā)現(xiàn)，像地球一樣，Triton也有大氣層，大部分所含的是氮氣。
The spacecraft also found geysers erupting material that rises five miles above Triton's surface.
此外，Triton表面的間歇噴泉不時地向外噴射高達5英里遠的物質(zhì)也被旅行者號發(fā)現(xiàn)。
Today, 25 years later, Neptune remains the farthest planet to be visited by a spacecraft.
25年過后的今天，海王星仍然是目前飛行器造訪過最遠距離的星球。
But its record will soon be shattered.
但這一榮耀不久將被打破。
In July 2015, NASA's New Horizons mission zips close to Pluto, which will make that distant world the farthest planet yet visited—for those intrepid individuals who still consider Pluto a planet.
不遠的2015年7月，NASA將啟動新地平線計劃越過冥王星進行考察，屆時冥王星將成為迄今為止訪問過世界最遠距離的星球—因為對那些無畏的人而言，冥王星是一顆星球。
