The first and only fully functioning solar-powered plane, called Solar Impulse 2, began its journey around the world yesterday.
The plane took off from Al Bateen Executive Airport in Abu Dhabi and came to its first rest stop 12 hours later in Oman.
The aircraft is expected to have gone all around the world by early August 2015, the total trip taking about 182 days.
The First #RTW Solar Flight is controlled from the Mission Control Center in #Monaco! #MCC
The map of the aircrafts first round-the-world flight.
The plane is a single-seater and has a wingspan of over 236 feet, but weighs about as much as the average car.
That's a wingspan bigger than a Boeing 747, but the whole aircraft weighs only about 1% of a Boeing's weight.
Though solar aircrafts have taken short flights before, Solar Impulse 2 is the first of its kind to be able to fly safely at night and all around the world.
Two pilots will switch off, each flying for about four to five days. The Solar Impulse team has carefully calculated the excess weight of the food, water, and sports drinks they will be consuming during their flight.
Take a "3D tour" of the airplane:
The two men behind the invention are Swiss pilots and aeronauts Bertrand Piccard, who made the first non-stop round-the-world balloon flight, and André Borschberg.
But a large team of French-speaking pilots, engineers, designers, and ground crew have been working on it for 12 years.
"Solar Impulse's ambition is ... to contribute to the cause of renewable energies and to demonstrate the importance of clean technologies for sustainable development," the team said in a statement.
Watch this dramatically narrated short documentary on Solar Impulse 2 to learn more about its round-the-world flight:
