We review the main results of our previous works, in which we have investigated the
development of the Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) instability in the transitional regime from
sub-magnetosonic to super-magnetosonic by varying the solar wind velocity, in conditions
typical of those observed at the Earth’s magnetopause flanks. In super-magnetosonic
regimes, we show that the vortices produced by the development of the KH instability act
as an obstacle in the plasma flow and may generate quasi-perpendicular magnetosonic shock
structures extending well outside the region of velocity shear.