The usual book on the theory of spectral line formation begins with an in-depth dis cussion of radiation transfer, including the elegant methods of obtaining analytical solutions for special cases, and of the physics of line broadening. Neither of those features will be found in this book. It is assumed that the reader is already familiar with the essentials of transport theory and of line broadening and is ready to investi gate some of the particular applications of the theory to the flow of line photons through the outer layers of a star, or other tenuous media. The main thrust of this book...

The devotion of an IA U symposium entirely to the topic of chromo spheric fine structure at a time when models of the spherically symmetric chromosphere are still evolving constitutes a valid recognition of the growing feeling among solar astron- omers that the chromosphere cannot be understood independently of its discrete structural features. Network structure, which seemingly borders the photospheric supergranule cells, persists intact throughout the chromosphere and most of the chromosphere-corona transition region. The network is the locus of the bright coarse mottles, and the spicule...

The widespread tendency in solar physics to divide the solar atmosphere into separate layers and to distinguish phenomena of solar activity from phenomena of the quiet Sun emphasizes the wide ranging diversity of physical conditions and events occurring in the solar atmosphere. This diversity spans the range from a neutral, essentially quiescent atmosphere to a highly ionized, violently convective atmosphere; from a domain in which magnetic field effects are unimportant to a domain in which the magnetic pressure exceeds the gas pressure, and from a domain in which the particle motions are...