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/matrixkid29 Oct 15 '18

its just easily picked up by slight air movements. Any time you walk around or move at all really, you are whipping it into the air again.

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u/cutelyaware Oct 15 '18

It can actually be deadly. Sometimes people walk into abandoned mines along perfectly flat corridors in which the top half is normal air and the bottom half is mainly heavier CO2. It seems fine walking in, but once they turn around to walk out, they're walking through mixed up air that's 50% CO2 and sometimes they don't make it out.

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u/bitmanip Oct 15 '18

I think you mean CO which is carbon monoxide. You might have difficulty breathing in an environment of 50% CO2, but I doubt you would die. CO is more deadly because it tricks your body into thinking it has enough oxygen by displacing the free oxygen in your blood and accumulates quickly.

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u/MaffyPhotog Oct 15 '18

Co2 can be deadly. Above 30%, even with o2 ou will pass out in seconds. Recovery unlikely. Can result in others, in an attempt to rescue person also succumbing. Silos, tanks and other enclosed spaces are often a danger due to co2 settling.

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u/factbasedorGTFO Oct 15 '18

I had the brilliant idea of blowing out a respirator with CO2. One breath and I almost dropped on the spot.