Student researchers from Marden High School and Orbyts Fellows Samuel Hor and Paulina Alexandra Quijia Pilapaña from Northumbria University, have investigated turbulence within Earth's magnetosheath utilising data from NASA's MMS (Magnetospheric Multiscale) mission. The magnetosheath, a turbulent region located between the bow shock and the magnetic field, is a crucial area for understanding space weather phenomena that could impact our planet, such as solar storms.

The objective of this research was to identify patterns of turbulence in the energy spectra by analysing the velocity, number density, and magnitude of the magnetic field within the magnetosheath. To achieve this, magnetic field data, velocity data, and number density data of ions and electrons from MMS were plotted using Python. The time series plots of these quantities exhibit turbulent and chaotic behaviour, indicating numerous fluctuations of varying sizes within the magnetosheath.

A key aspect of the methodology involved computing the Power Spectral Density (PSD) from these quantities. This was done to look for the "fingerprint of turbulence" as described by Kolmogorov's law, which predicts a −5/3 slope in the energy spectrum. For the PSD in wavenumber space for the magnetic field, the observed spectrum, while generally following a decreasing trend, does not perfectly align with the−5/3 slope across all wavenumbers, suggesting the presence of other phenomena modifying the spectrum in this non-laminar plasma. Similarly, for the PSD of electron and ion velocities, a deviation from the expected behavior at certain wavenumbers is observed.

These findings confirm the turbulent nature of the magnetosheath and highlight the complexity of its plasma dynamics. Future work could involve comparing these results with computer simulations and analysing PSDs where Kolmogorov's law is not perfectly fulfilled to investigate the influence of other factors on turbulence. Additionally, analysing magnetosheath data during solar storms could provide further insights into how these events affect turbulence levels.