Different processes can produce similar spacecraft observations, making it difficult to determine how particles move through Earth’s radiation belt.

A spacecraft passing through Earth’s radiation belts can record particle behavior that looks random even when the underlying motion is highly organized. New research suggests that the limited resolution of spacecraft measurements can hide fine structures in high-energy particle populations, making predictable movement resemble diffusion.

The International Space Science Institute (ISSI) research team, led by the University of Birmingham and the Czech Academy of Science, reports in Physical Review Research that distinctly structured particle motion can produce observations nearly indistinguishable from patterns usually attributed to random scattering.