ARCO, Idaho (AP) — Volcanic rocks the size of footballs slid and bounced down a steep lava slope. At the top, a team of geologists, biologists and NASA engineers had just climbed the hill of jagged rock known as the North Highway Flow.

The team is FINESSE, short for Field Investigations to Enable Solar System Science and Exploration. Its goal at Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve: Conduct field experiments and procedures that may be used by NASA, which plans to land astronauts on Mars in the 2030s, according to the Twin Falls Times-News The team worked alongside another from Biologic Analog Science Associated with Lava Terrains, BASALT.

That program's goal: Look at the habitability of terrains similar to Mars. Both are headed by the NASA Ames Research Center and began a combined five-year project at Craters of the Moon in 2014.

The teams include scientists and engineers from NASA facilities throughout the country as well as educators from Idaho. For the first two weeks of August, they worked together, combining a variety of projects into a holistic, analog study of Mars and other planetary bodies. At Craters of the Moon, they conducted experiments at the North Highway Flow, King's Bowl lava field and other geologically significant locations.

They took rock samples and tested $1 million in equipment to better prepare for human and robotic explorations throughout our solar system. NASA views Craters of the Moon as an analog to the moon, Mars and other planetary bodies.

The North Highway Flow's silicon- and titanium-rich lava rocks are the result of an eruptive period along the Great Rift 2,000 years ago. Its rocks represent some of the youngest in all of Craters of the Moon.

Though much of the actual moon's craters are the result of meteorite impact, the melted material there has flows similar to the park's. What the researchers can learn at Craters of the Moon may preview what's on other planetary bodies.

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