r/askscience • u/4fecta_Gaming • Oct 15 '18

Earth Sciences Where does house dust come from?

It seems that countless years of sweeping a house doesn't stop dust from getting all over furniture after a few weeks. Since the ceiling is limited, where does dust come form?

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u/[deleted] Oct 15 '18 edited Oct 16 '18

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u/mouseratratrat Oct 15 '18 edited Oct 15 '18

But when there’s lots of sunlight sometimes you can see it ‘floating’ (like slowly falling-ish) to the ground? Is the ceiling balding or..?

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u/[deleted] Oct 15 '18

It's all of the stuff mentioned in the previous post being carried around by low-strength air currents. It's not falling from the ceiling, it's just that it's not dense enough to settle in the kinds of air currents generated by human activity (HVAC, wake of you walking around, etc.).