Researchers are saying that an important chemical ingredient needed for life may have been more plentiful on ancient Mars than on ancient Earth.

The nutrient, identified as phosphate, acts as a DNA backbone and an essential part of the molecules that are used by cells for energy and membranes. Scientists even believe that the phosphate caused critical reactions that had spurred the Earth’s life origins.

Compared to Earth, Mars is five to 10 times richer in phosphate as revealed by its meteorites that have crash-landed on Earth and the scans made by NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity rovers on the surface of the Red Planet. This information has further fueled the speculation that Mars had once supported life and still supports life up to this day.

However, the presence of phosphate doesn’t really mean that it is available for use in life’s chemical reactions. One explanation is the fact that minerals holding the Earth’s phosphate dissolve very slowly which limits its availability in environments that are watery. Scientists believe that this may have created a roadblock to the appearance of life on Earth.

To better understand the phosphate-related issues faced by any life forms on Mars, Christopher Adcock, planetary geochemist at the Las Vegas’ University of Nevada, and his colleagues studied how the phosphate-filled minerals thought to be thriving on Mars have been dissolved through certain levels of acidity.

The researchers later discovered that the dominant phosphate-filled minerals on Mars are notably more soluble, enabling them to bring out more phosphate into water compared to the most common minerals on Earth.

The findings further suggest that the release of phosphate is faster by as much as 45 times during interactions made between rock and water on Mars compared to Earth. On the whole, phosphate concentrations found on wet environments on ancient Mars may have been twice as much as those of ancient

The study was published in the Sept. 1 issue of the online journal Nature Geoscience.