Despite the discovery of a meteorite on Mars the other day that looks vaguely like the famous one from the 1990s, hopes are beginning to dim for finding life on the red planet, Space.com reports.

That's because while methane was found in the Martian atmosphere--which led to speculation that something living had produced it--a new study released today in the journal Nature said that the methane plumes were actually concentrated in one spot, the report said. That means they were probably generated by a chemical reaction within the atmosphere, instead of spread out across the atmosphere the way it happens with living beings. And the plumes are also destroyed quickly--within the hour.

"If observations of spatial and temporal variations of methane are confirmed, this would suggest an extraordinarily harsh environment for the survival of organics on the planet," wrote Franck Lefevre and Francois Forget, of the Universitaire Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, in the journal. (Image: NASA)