The Solar Impulse 2 airplane, powered solely by the sun, flew very close to Malta a few hours ago, and issued a issued a cheery Hi.

The plane took off from Seville yesterday and is now approaching Cairo, on the last stages of its round-the-world journey.

The current flight is solar plane's penultimate before it reaches the finish line of its round-the-world trip in Abu-Dhabi, the starting point of the journey.

The plane's round-the-world trip, which has been shared by Swiss aviators Andre Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard. 

The flight to Cairo International Airport is expected to take 50 hours and 30 minutes.

With a cruising speed of around 70 kilometres an hour (43 miles per hour), similar to an average car, the plane has more than 17,0000 solar cells built in to wings with a span bigger than that of a Boeing 747. 

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.