Asteroid science and its storage

[a2soup]

How does asteroid science work? I know you can take surface samples from asteroids, but do they also provide a unique situation to do other experiments in, like crew reports, EVA reports, and the science modules?

Also, can you store experiments from different asteroids in the same pod, or do they cancel out since they are all just "from an asteroid"?

Thanks for your help!

Edited January 6, 2015 by a2soup

[DeMatt]

How does asteroid science work? I know you can take surface samples from asteroids, but do they also provide a unique situation to do other experiments in, like crew reports, EVA reports, and the science modules?

Asteroids act more like "an experiment you can do", rather than "a place to do experiments". Thus they do not affect other experiments.

Can't answer your other question, but I suspect that they would not overwrite each other.

[Superfluous J]

You can store multiple asteroid reports in a pod so long as they're from a different biome.

Asteroids function a lot like thermometers, except they can't hold their own reading. You have to use an EVA'd Kerbal and that Kerbal holds the report. That report, though, has all the same restrictions and possibilities of any other science experiment, including the ability to hold any number of unique reports of the same type in a pod.

Oh, and they're a lot bigger

[cantab]

Asteroids act like any other experiment and thus give different results in different situations, ie different SOIs and places in said SOIs. I'm not sure about biomes. (In essence "biome" is where you are horizontally and "situation" is where you are vertically). Each asteroid is a unique experiment, which means you can store results from two asteroids in the same situation in the same command pod.

They're also affected by the normal science multipliers, which gives some odd results. Most notably an asteroid landing on Kerbin, though awesome, is terrible for getting science because landed on Kerbin has the lowest multiplier. On the other hand meet it in solar orbit and course correct onto a Mun flyby and you can rake in the science with separate readings for Sun high, Kerbin high, Mun high, maybe Mun low and/or Kerbin low.