Plane powered by the sun successfully crosses the Atlantic Ocean

(Image credit: EUGENE TANNER/AFP/Getty Images)

published 23 June 2016

The zero-fuel airplane Solar Impulse 2 made history Thursday when it landed in the Spanish city of Seville. After a four-day journey, Solar Impulse 2 became the first solar-powered plane to ever successfully cross the Atlantic Ocean. The plane's latest journey, which started Monday in New York, marks a particularly challenging — and important — leg of its flight around the world. "The Atlantic is the symbolic part of the flight," pilot Bertrand Piccard told The Guardian. "It is symbolic because all the means of transportation have always tried to cross the Atlantic, the first steamboats, the first aeroplane, the first balloons, the first airships and, today, it is the first solar-powered aeroplane." Piccard flew solo for a total of 71 hours and 8 minutes before making his landing.

At this point, the solar-powered plane has been on its global journey for over a year, most recently flying across the United States. The plane weighs no more than a car, but has a wingspan larger than that of a Boeing 747 to accommodate the 17,000 solar panels flanking its wings. It can seat just two pilots.

The hope for the Solar Impulse 2 is that it can demonstrate the power of "clean technologies." "But the goal is not to change aviation, as Charles Lindbergh did," Piccard told The Guardian, "but to inspire people to use [renewable] technologies and show people they can use these technologies every day to have a better quality of life."