Solar plane flies through the night

The first solar-powered plane to make an overnight flight landed early this morning after flying for 26 hours straight. There's some great photos up on ZDnet. NPR says it was also the longest and highest flight by a solar-powered aircraft. That said, don't get too excited yet. The Solar Impulse is, basically, the green futurism equivalent of a Wright Brothers prototype. Promising, but a ways from commercial use. From conversations I've had with researchers studying the future of transportation technology, we'd need a way to store a lot more energy in a lot less weight/space before solar planes can really be competitive with those run on liquid fuels.