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 motorized 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]