A NASA spacecraft flies over craters on Mars. They can run pools.

The radiating surface of Mars is a godforsaken place.

There may still be shallow pools of water near the surface of Mars 1,000 Way more dry than the dry desert of the earth. NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter – a satellite that has been orbiting Mars for about two decades – is a white object lined with dry craters. The space agency, which recently released the image below, suspects it's dusty water ice that warms up and forms lakes similar to processes on our planet.

“Dust particles in this ice behave like dust falling on glaciers on Earth, heating up in sunlight and forming surface pockets of meltwater,” the scientists believe. NASA explained.

“These pockets of water on our planet are often teeming with simple life, including algae, fungi and cyanobacteria,” the agency added. “Scientists believe similar shallow pools may exist on Mars and may be the best place to look for life on the Red Planet today.”

Such glacial dust on terrestrial glaciers creates phenomena called “cryoconite holes” that can hide hundreds or more glaciers. One is depicted in the second image below.

The Mars Observation Orbiter uses a giant camera that can “see features as small as a kitchen table” from its orbit 155 to 196 miles above the surface. Space It cannot detect any shallow pools. However, the image clearly shows the white patches in craters on Mars in an area called Terra Cyranum. (The blue at the bottom of the gullies is coarse sand, invisible to the human eye but seen here in infrared light wavelengths.)

A cryoconite hole on the Isunquata Cermia glacier in Greenland.
Credit: Sean Gallup / Getty Images

There are many craters on Mars today, but they were not formed by flowing water. Instead, planetary scientists suspect that the carbon dioxide freeze seasonally changes from solid to gas (called sublimation), and provides “lubrication” for the downward movement of Martian soil and rocks. Ice blocks may also slide down the sides of Martian craters or other terrain.

Mars, which has lost much of its insulating atmosphere, cannot support much liquid water on its surface – but there may be water sources deep underground.

Planetary scientists recently used unprecedented data collected by the space agency's InSight lander, which recorded geological activity on Mars for four years, to reveal that water may exist miles below the Martian crust. The research, which calls for further investigation, may explain where the Red Planet's water bounties have gone as the world dries up, and suggests that Mars may offer a hospitable environment for life.

“We've identified the Martian equivalent of deep subsurface water on Earth,” Michael Manga, a planetary scientist at UC Berkeley who co-authored the new research, told Mashable.

For now, NASA's car-sized rovers are exploring remnants of past Martian lakes and rivers for evidence of past habitation and the possibility of Martian life — if it ever existed, that is.