Hale was created by an asteroid roughly 35 km (22 mi) across that impacted at an oblique angle about 3.5–3.8 billion years ago.

The rim and ejecta are eroded and show smaller impacts, but subsequent deposits have covered up small craters within it.

Research published in the journal Icarus has found pits in Hale Crater that are caused by hot ejecta falling on ground containing ice.

Although many ideas have been put forward to explain them, the most popular involve liquid water either coming from an aquifer or left over from old glaciers.

Various measurements and calculations show that liquid water could exist in an aquifer at the usual depths where the gullies begin.

[7] One variation of this model is that rising hot magma could have melted ice in the ground and caused water to flow in aquifers.