Convective overshoot carries material from an unstable convecting region into an adjacent stably stratified region because its momentum does not vanish at the stability boundary. In stars this mixes material beyond the boundary determined by a local stellar convective stability criterion, changing stellar core masses and nuclear lifetimes.
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Convective overshoot refers to a phenomenon that occurs in the atmosphere when rising air parcels during convection extend beyond their level of neutral buoyancy into the stable layer above. When a parcel of air is heated from below, it becomes buoyant and ascends. In the process, if it becomes strongly buoyant, it can overshoot the equilibrium level where it would typically stop rising and instead continue upward into warmer, less buoyant air or even into the stratosphere.