Beagle 2's 'Mothership' Mars Express has confirmed the presence of large amounts of ice water at Mars' south pole, highlighting again the strong possibility of past life on the planet The high resolution spectrometer on the European spacecraft, OMEGA, has sent back images showing the unmistakable signature of water at the pole. This confirmed previous data that suggested that large amounts of ice were held in the martian polar caps. Professor Colin Pillinger, the leader of the Beagle 2 project, sent his congratulations to Jean-Pierre Bibring at the European Space Agency, whose team was responsible for the find. The ice suggests there was liquid water on Mars in the past. Professor Pillinger noted that where there was water, there may have been life. "This discovery reemphasises the need for surface missions like Beagle 2, which can search for the signs of life directly through chemical analysis of subsurface soil and rock," he added. Word. Mars Express' high resolution camera has continued to return impressive data. The camera team, led by Gerhard Neukum, has been presenting some spectacularly detailed views of the martian landscape.