A partial solar eclipse, even one with the sun 99 percent obscured, won’t incite the same intensity of awe, wonder, shock or — for some — the irrepressible desire to scream. A partial eclipse bears the same relation to seeing a total eclipse as kissing a man does to marry him, or as flying in an airplane does to falling out of an airplane. Advertisement The sun and the stars and the planets do not, under normal circumstances, share the same sky.