tldr; Something is actively producing methane in Mars but it's not necessary microbial life. > methane gas dissipates relatively quickly—within around 12 year

tldr; Something is actively producing methane in Mars but it's not necessary microbial life. > methane gas dissipates relatively quickly—within around 12 years on Earth > they conducted two parallel experiments to determine the most likely source of methane on Mars to be an ice sheet east of Gale Crater—itself long assumed to be a dried up lake. > The most likely source was a sheet of frozen methane beneath a rock formation, which the team believes periodically ejects the gas into the atmosphere. > "Methane is important because it could be an indicator of microbial life," he said. "But life is not required to explain these detections because methane can be produced by abiotic processes."