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

"People had thought that the sun's magnetic field is created by the motions at the very bottom of the convection zone."

From Science Daily • May 22, 2024

Most solar researchers agree that the solar dynamo is located in the convection zone or in the interface layer between the convection zone and the radiative zone below it.

From Textbooks • Oct. 13, 2016

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

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