convection zone

American  

[kuhn-vek-shuhn zohn] / kənˈvɛk ʃən ˌzoʊn /

noun

1. Astronomy. Also called convective zone, convective region. an unstable layer within a star, where energy is transported mostly by convection rather than radiation.

---

convection zone Scientific  

1. A region of turbulent plasma between a star's core and its visible photosphere at the surface, through which energy is transferred by convection. In the convection zone, hot plasma rises, cools as it nears the surface, and falls to be heated and rise again.

---

Example Sentences

However, decades of helioseismic studies have revealed conflicting information about how these flows behave deep inside the convection zone.

From Science Daily • Oct. 14, 2025

In addition, in past years advances in helioseismology, i.e. probing the solar interior with the help of solar acoustic waves, have established that this rotational profile is nearly constant throughout the entire convection zone.

From Science Daily • Mar. 27, 2024

Pulsation measurements also show that the differential rotation that we see at the Sun’s surface, with the fastest rotation occurring at the equator, persists down through the convection zone.

From Textbooks • Oct. 13, 2016

Below the convection zone, however, the Sun, even though it is gaseous throughout, rotates as if it were a solid body like a bowling ball.

From Textbooks • Oct. 13, 2016

Adjacent cylinders rotate in opposite directions in the 250,000-mile-deep solar convection zone and gradually migrate toward the equator.

From Time Magazine Archive