Editing Sun (section)

=== Convective zone ===
{{Main|Convection zone}}
The Sun's convection zone extends from 0.7 solar radii (500,000&nbsp;km) to near the surface. In this layer, the solar plasma is not dense or hot enough to transfer the heat energy of the interior outward via radiation. Instead, the density of the plasma is low enough to allow convective currents to develop and move the Sun's energy outward towards its surface. Material heated at the tachocline picks up heat and expands, thereby reducing its density and allowing it to rise. As a result, an orderly motion of the mass develops into thermal cells that carry most of the heat outward to the Sun's photosphere above. Once the material diffusively and radiatively cools just beneath the photospheric surface, its density increases, and it sinks to the base of the convection zone, where it again picks up heat from the top of the radiative zone and the convective cycle continues. At the photosphere, the temperature has dropped 350-fold to {{convert|5,700|K|F}} and the density to only 0.2&nbsp;g/m<sup>3</sup> (about 1/10,000 the density of air at sea level, and 1 millionth that of the inner layer of the convective zone).<ref name=NASA1 />

The thermal columns of the convection zone form an imprint on the surface of the Sun giving it a granular appearance called the [[solar granulation]] at the smallest scale and [[supergranulation]] at larger scales. Turbulent convection in this outer part of the solar interior sustains "small-scale" dynamo action over the near-surface volume of the Sun.<ref name=NASA1 /> The Sun's thermal columns are [[Bénard cells]] and take the shape of roughly hexagonal prisms.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mullan |first=D. J. |title=From the Sun to the Great Attractor |year=2000 |publisher=[[Springer Science+Business Media|Springer]] |isbn=978-3-540-41064-5 |editor-last=Page |editor-first=D. |page=22 |chapter=Solar Physics: From the Deep Interior to the Hot Corona |access-date=22 August 2020 |editor-last2=Hirsch |editor-first2=J. G. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rk5fxs55_OkC&pg=PA22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210417080656/https://books.google.com/books?id=rk5fxs55_OkC&pg=PA22 |archive-date=17 April 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref>