If you thought Mars was red, think again. When Curiosity gave the planet a New Year’s clean, she removed some of the red dust which covers the surface of the planet — and what lurks beneath is white.
Her appropriately named Dust Removal Tool — kind of like a motorised wire brush — cleaned a spot of the planet for analysis. It revealed a little patch of rock — now known as Ekwir_1 — in the Yellowknife Bay area of Mars’ Gale Crater. Turns out under all that red dust, it’s actually kinda pale. [NASA via Popular Science]