Biogenic contribution to methane detected in molecular clouds and protostellar environments

Determine whether a portion of methane detected in molecular clouds and protostellar regions originates from methanogenic life activities.

Background

The paper discusses searching for biomarker molecules in molecular clouds, noting that distributions of methane and carbon dioxide ice observed around protostars (e.g., IRAS16253-2429) could potentially correlate with metabolic byproducts of life.

However, the observed distributions are also consistent with classical dark-cloud chemistry, and the author explicitly states that further research is required to determine whether any fraction of the detected methane is biological in origin.