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I did it. I "docked" with an asteroid using the "Klaw" and changed it's orbit. Now it has a non-escape trajectory. But now I'm wondering... can I de-orbit it and land it safely on Kerbin?

Asteroid

If I dock a ship with a lot of parachutes, could I land on an asteroid and bring it back to Kerbin and the chutes should be able to stop it, right?

I read here that they can burn up or de-spawn in atmosphere so I want to know if anyone has done it...

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    I did it. But I wanted it in the KSC so I made a "tow truck" to pull it the last couple of kms. Something glitched and it flew off at 300,000 m/s escaping atmosphere, Kerbin and Kerbol, never to be seen again.
    – Coomie
    Commented Apr 24, 2014 at 2:01
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    If you're in Career mode and you land one, you can even do Science on it. I downloaded a mod called Science Library which shows available experiments that still can get points, and you wouldn't believe how much science can be done with asteroids. Surface samples can be taken from every biome, every situation, even every other celestial body. It's insane.
    – IT Bear
    Commented Jul 7, 2014 at 5:46

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Yes. I haven't done this personally, but I've seen videos of people attaching parachutes to an asteroid and deorbiting it.

It's really quite simple, and the asteroids are relatively resilient. As for burning up or despawning, well that's just the same mechanic as everything else in the game. If you have a ship or piece of debris that isn't loaded and it enters the atmosphere, the game will despawn it. If you're trying to land an asteroid, then it'll be loaded, and thus won't be subject to that mechanic.

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    I did it personally. I now have an 85 ton asteroid laying around near my space center.
    – Philipp
    Commented Apr 9, 2014 at 13:39

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