The 2023 Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft measured the rate at which turbulent magnetic energy cascades from large to small scales after solar‑wind plasma crosses Earth’s bow shock. Using the incompressible Hall–MHD Kármán–Howarth–Monin equation, the study found that the cascade rate is 100 to 1000 times higher than in the undisturbed solar wind. The mean rate in the magnetosheath reached about 4×10⁶ J kg⁻¹ s⁻¹, and the data span several orders of magnitude.

The measured cascade rate decreases only slightly with distance from the bow shock. A power‑law fit of the rates versus the relative distance, DB, gives ε∝DB^γ with γ≈−0.10. In other words, even two spacecraft radii downstream of the shock the turbulence remains strong and the cascade rate remains high.