The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite may be one of the most revolutionary Earth-observing missions that you haven’t heard of. Unlike satellites that have come before, SWOT will provide the first global coverage of Earth’s water cycle with unprecedented scale and accuracy.

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You’ve probably seen one of the stunning first images from the James Webb Space Telescope, and maybe even heard that the images are “false color”. In this post I’ll talk first about why the false coloring is necessary in the first place, and then guide you through the steps to download the raw images from NASA and then combine them into your own colorful masterpiece.

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What do giraffes, angelfish, and seashells all have in common? Their surface patterns, from the patches on giraffe coats to the stripes on the angelfish, are formed through the reaction-diffusion process, a mathematical model describing the interplay between an activator and inhibitor.

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