Perseverance found Mars dust 500 times thinner than a human hair — and that helps future astronauts breathe easier

Mars is a dusty place, and anyone who one day walks there will have to live with that dust. NASA's Perseverance rover, working in and around Jezero Crater since 2021, has now detected the finest dust particles yet measured on the planet: ultrafine grains around 100 nanometres wide, roughly 500 times thinner than a human hair, in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The rover measured dust clinging to its own hardware, including spacesuit materials carried aboard to see how they hold up. Lead author Scott VanBommel of Washington University in St. Louis notes that smaller particles can travel deeper into the human body — exactly the kind of knowledge mission planners need now, while they can still design around it, rather than after crews arrive.

SDG 9 · Industry, innovation and infrastructure — Mechanism: tech innovation