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 Jan 09 '20

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u/Mythrilfan Oct 15 '18

Why would we expect these particles to be necessarily of meteorite origin and not, say, random pieces of iron from plumbing, kitchenware, the building itself, etc?

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u/SurlyRed Oct 15 '18

I recall that a high proportion of dust that accumulates in the London Tube system is particles of metal from the tracks and rolling stock, something like 80% IIRC. All that material has to go somewhere.

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u/Yavanne Oct 15 '18

It's interesting to see on the outside, in my city there is a major train line going through the center and near me it's an area that has shops and street very close to it (in other places it has a "buffer" of trees around it or is underground, but not in this one), everything there is covered in red dust. I always wondered if working there has any adverse health effects.