when an aircraft passes through the air, it creates a series of pressure waves in front of the aircraft and behind it. these waves travel at the speed of sound and, as the speed of the object increases, the waves get compressed as they cannot get out of each other's way quickly enough. when the aircraft gets the velocity of sound wave, the pressure waves get merge into a single shock wave. as the velocity keeps increasing, the single shock wave extends mostly to the rear and extends from the craft in a restricted widening cone. we hear this as sonic boom. similarly, a bow wave forms when something moves through a fluid at a speed greater than the speed of a wave moving across the fluid. the mechanism of cherenkov radiation is same but it occurs for light waves.