People in a much larger region of the world can anticipate seeing a partial solar eclipse, in which the moon blocks only a fraction of the sun's disk.

CNN: Africa awaits total eclipse of the sun

By comparison, meteors of the type that hit Russia originate at the earliest reaches of time in the disk of gas and dust that swirled around the early sun.

WSJ: Russia Meteor Was Largest in More Than a Century

During his 32nd solar eclipse observation, the Harvard-trained astronomer is to study the elusive coronal ring, the outer atmosphere of the sun, which can only be seen when the moon blots out the solar disk.

CNN: Africa awaits total eclipse of the sun