Prominences are amazing objects of great beauty whose formation, basic
structure and eruption represent one of the basic unsolved problems in
Solar Physics. It is now 14 years since the last book on prominences
appeared (Tandberg-Hanssen, 1974), during which time much progress in
our knowledge of the physics of prominences has been made, and so the
time is ripe for a new text book which it is hoped will be a helpful
summary of the subject for students, postdocs and solar researchers.
Indeed, the last few years has seen an upsurge in interest in
prominences due to high- resolution ground-and space-based observations
and advances in theory. For example, an IAU colloquium was held in Oslo
(Jensen et al, 1978), a Solar Maximum Mission Workshop took place at
Goddard Space Right Center (poland, 1986), an IAU Colloquium is planned
in Yugoslavia in September 1989 in prominences and it is expected that
the SOHO satellite will be a further stimulus to prominence research. In
November 1987 a Workshop on the Dynamics and Structure of Solar
Prominences was held in Palma Mallorca at the invitation of Jose Luis
Ballester with the aim of bringing observers and theorists together and
having plenty of time for in-depth discussions of the basic physics of
promi- nences.