The mystery of methane on Mars may finally be solved as scientists have confirmed the presence of the life-indicating gas on the Red Planet as well as where it might have come from.

Axar.az reports citing PressTV.

In the 15 years since a European probe reported traces of the gas in the Martian atmosphere, debate has raged over the accuracy of the readings showing methane, which on Earth is produced by simple lifeforms.

Because methane gas dissipates relatively quickly -- within around 12 years on Earth -- and due to the difficulty of observing Mars' atmosphere, many scientists questioned previous studies that relied on a single data set.

Now an international team of experts have compared observations from two separate spacecraft, taken just one day apart in 2013, to find independent proof of methane on our neighboring planet.

Furthermore, 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.

"This is very exciting and largely unexpected," Marco Giuranna, from Rome's National Astrophysics Institute, told AFP.

"Two completely independent lines of investigation pointed to the same general area of the most likely source for the methane."

Europe's Mars Express probe measured 15.5 parts per billion in the atmosphere above the Gale Crater on June 16, 2013. The presence of methane in the vicinity was confirmed by readings taken 24 hours earlier by NASA's Curiosity rover.

Using the data, Giuranna and the team divided the region around the crater into grids of 250 by 250 square kilometers.

One study then ran a million computer-modeled emissions scenarios for each section while another team studied images of the planet surface for features associated on Earth with the release of methane.