A new study published in the journal Nature Communications has found methane trapped in Mars meteorites. These findings indicate that meteorites hold clue to methane mystery and potential for life.

The scientists studied Martian meteorites such as Los Angeles 002 in order to find out how much methane they held.

They crushed rock from the meteorites and forced out the gases trapped inside. Among the released gases, which include carbon dioxide, hydrogen, nitrogen and trace amounts of oxygen and argon, significant amounts of methane and hydrogen were found.

The study authors, “The availability of methane and hydrogen is critical to the potential of the Martian crust as a habitat for microbial life. The hostile Martian surface is probably less habitable than the subsurface, and several scenarios have been proposed for deep Martian life”.

Astrobiologists have been focused to examine whether life could have existed on the Red Planet due to mystery of methane.

Although methane can be made in nonbiological ways on Earth, the majority of it is made by living things. It can also be consumed by certain types of microbes. Therefore, the presence of methane could potentially be a food source for them.

Although the Red Planet increasingly looks like it supported life, methane has proved remarkably difficult to pin down Mars.