In this article I review the past and current status of solar astronomy in Korea and present some future prospects. Along with a brief historical account on the introduction of modern astronomy to Korea, I describe in detail how solar astronomy in Korea has developed since its birth about 20 years ago. With education of solar astronomers at domestic universities and collaboration with foreign scientists in China, Japan and the U. S., there has been a rapid growth of solar physics in Korea in the past decade. For further advance of solar astronomy in Korea, Korean solar astronomers have to build their own observing facilities and develop instrumentation programs. Also it is very important to bring up manpower competent for these projects.

A hydrostatic model atmosphere of a typical umbral core is constructed on the basis of both Na I D 2 line profile and umbral core-to disk continuum intensity ratio. The observations were obtained by Mullan and Wyller with photoelectric means over the range from 4000 |AA a n d 6500 |AA . The computed line profile of Na I D 2 and the emergent continuum intensity distribution are compared with the observations. The temperature of umbral cores is found to be lower by 300 ˚ K t o 500 ˚ K than that of their ambient umbral region. The detailed physical structure of a working model of umbral cores is proposed.

The evolutionary tracks of a protostar of one solar mass under quasi-hydrostatic equilibrium are computed with mass-accretion time scales of 10^3,10^4,10^5 and 10^6 years, and their resulting behaviors in the H-R diagram are discussed. It is found that there exists a critical time scale of mass accretion, which reverses the course of their evolutionary tracks. A value of the critical time scale appears to lie between 10^3 and 10^4 years. The physical cause for the presence of the critical time scale is discussed. Finally, it is proposed that star formation requires at least several 10^3 years before any star is born out of dark dense interstellar clouds.

he translational and reactive parts of thermal conductivity of a partially ionized solar magneto-plasma gas have been calculated based on Yun and Wyller's formulation (1972) along with Devoto's theory(1968). The computed results are presented as functions of temperature and pressure for given magnetic field strengths. The results of the calculations show that for most photospheric conditions the magnetic field does not play any important role in characterizing thermal properties of the ionized gas. However, when the gas pressure is low(e.g., P<10 dynes/ c m 2 ) ) the field becomes extremely effective even if its strength is quite small (e.g., B<0.1 gauss). The reactive part of the thermal transport is found to be very important when the gas is undertaking active ionization.

Solar electrical conductivity has been calculated, making use of Yun and Wyller's formulation. The computed results arc presented in a tabulated form as functions of temperature and pressure for given magnetic field strengths. The results of the calculation show that the magnetic field does not play any important role in characterizing the electrical conductivity of the ionized gas when the gas pressure is relatively high (e.g., P ≥ 10 4 d y n e s / c m 2 ). However, when the gas pressure is low (e.g., P ≤ 10 d y n e s / c m 2 ), the magnetic field becomes very effective even if its field strength is quite small (e.g., B ≤ 0.01 gauss). It is also found that, except for lower temperature region (e.g., T ≤ 10 4 ∘ K ), there is a certain linear relationship in a log- log graph between the pressure and the critical magnetic field strength, which is defined as a field strength capable of reducing the non-magnetic component of the electrical conductivity by 20%.

Observational implication for a possible presence of a magnetic monopole-like field in the visible layers of sunspots is examined by constructing a magnetostatic model of sunspots with a monopole-like field configuration. The resulting monopole approximation for a magnetic structure of spots is found to be compatible with the observations within a certain limited range of optical depth, which happens to lie mostly in its visible range.