A French explorer has completed the first Arctic crossing by balloon. Jean-Louis Etienne landed in the tundra of eastern Siberia five days after taking off in Norway.

Etienne embarked on the 31-hundred-kilometer passage in his solar-powered balloon on Monday. He sailed over the Arctic Circle, before landing in Siberia on Saturday. Etienne originally planned to land in Alaska to study C02 levels in the atmosphere and North Pole's magnetic field. But he changed his course after a snowstorm on Wednesday hindered the recharging of batteries via solar panels.