DON'T FORGET THE PARTIAL ECLIPSE: Mainstream media attention is focused on this week's total eclipse of the sun. Fair enough. The touch of the Moon's cool shadow and the sight of the sun's ghostly corona is a transformative experience. But don't forget the partial eclipse. As this animated map created by Larry Koehn of Shadow and Substance shows, the sun will be partially covered over almost half of the planet:
Unlike the path of totality, which is very narrow, the partial eclipse zone is huge. It touches places as far apart as Alaska (20% coverage), Hawaii (65%), Australia (0% to 60%), China (0% to 40%), Japan (20%), and Papua New Guinea (70%). This is good, because a partial eclipse is total fun.
