Magnetopause
The solar wind is supersonic and passes through a bow shock where the direction of flow is changed so that most of the solar wind plasma is pushed-aside to either side of the magnetopause, much like water is pushed-aside before the bow of a ship. The zone of shocked solar wind plasma is the magnetosheath. At Earth and all the other planets with built-in magnetic fields, some solar wind plasma succeeds in entering and becoming trapped within the magnetic field around the Earth. At Earth, the solar wind plasma which enters the magnetic field around the Earth forms the plasma sheet. The amount of solar wind plasma and energy that enters the magnetic field around the Earth is controlled by the direction of pointing of the interplanetary magnetic field, which is deeply set within the solar wind.