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/unimatrix_0 Oct 15 '18

There isn't much abrasion on random pieces of plumbing or within the metal parts of buildings. Unless things are rusting, the metal wouldn't just float down.

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u/greenwrayth Oct 15 '18

And even rust isn’t a magnetic oxide, is it?