Douglas Gough

Douglas Gough’s notable theoretical work on helioseismology has given the first accurate determination of the depth of the solar convection zone and the first determination of the internal rotation of the Sun. He has played a major role in designing suitable measurements of solar oscillations from spacecraft. In astrophysical fluid dynamics, he has made inventive calculations of convective instabilities. He made the first calculation of the interaction of stellar pulsation with convection and showed how convection might limit the red extension of the instability strip in the Hertzsprung–Russell (HR) diagram. He demonstrated that one possible explanation of the solar neutrino problem involves a turnover of the core predicted from an instability of the standard solar model.