THE Russian equipment aboard Nasa’s Mars Odyssey space probe revealed large quantities of ice upon the red planet’s surface, Russian scientists said on Tuesday. The Hand instrument examined the Martian soil and revealed some 10-million square kilometres of ice underneath the planet’s south pole, head of Russia’s space research institute Igor Mitrofanov said as quoted by the RIA-Novosti news agency. Frozen water was also found on the slopes of Mars’s 26-kilometre Mount Olympus, the solar system’s tallest mountain, Mitrofanov added. These regions should be the first to be examined for traces of life and to host first astronauts to fly to Mars, as the discovered water would be “vital support” to their mission, the scientist said. – AFP