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An area where hotter matter from the star's interior is convected to the surface, like the granules on the surface of our own sun, but vastly larger. Giant star
by Sharlin 7y ago
An area where hotter matter from the star's interior is convected to the surface, like the granules on the surface of our own sun, but vastly larger. Giant stars, especially near the end of their lives, are weird and unstable and asymmetric and are thought to only have a few huge convection cells covering their whole surface (if you can even talk about a surface given how nebulous giant stars are—almost all of their volume is basically vacuum).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convection_cell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convection_cell
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granule_(solar_physics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granule_(solar_physics)
- BurningFrog 7y agoThanks! Wikipedia says... "Jupiter has powerful storms, often accompanied by lightning strikes. The storms are a result of moist convection in the atmosphere connected to the evaporation and condensation of water. They are sites of strong upward motion of the air, which leads to the formation of bright and dense clouds." ...which I read as it is also a convection phenomenon, but due to very different underlying forces, of course. Not that I knew that :)
- Sharlin 7y agoYes, and as the WP page says, convection is also what causes thunderstorms on Earth, and, well, pretty much all weather. Convection of solid (but malleable) rock in the mantle is responsible for plate tectonics.