Perseverance Measures Mars Dust Fine Enough to Reach the Bloodstream

NASA's Perseverance rover measured fine and ultrafine Martian dust on spacesuit material samples, some of it small enough to enter human lungs and blood, NASA said Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026, ahead of publication in a journal.

The findings will be published Tuesday, Oct. 27, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, according to NASA's release. NASA says the work could inform spacesuit and habitat design, dust-removal procedures, and crew health standards for future missions to Mars.

The measurements took place over 1,645 Martian days, NASA says. They came from PIXL, short for Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry, an instrument on the rover's robotic arm. The paper's lead author is Scott VanBommel, a Perseverance scientist at Washington University in St. Louis.

"The existence of Mars dust at these ultrafine sizes has been predicted for a long time, and PIXL gave us the chance to measure it directly on Mars," VanBommel said in the release. "The larger clumps, the Martian dust bunnies, get shaken off over time. But the smallest particles stay behind, and those are the ones that pose the greatest challenge for human support systems."

NASA calls the PIXL results the first on-site measurements of fine and ultrafine particles on Mars.

How the dust was measured

The rover carries test materials. One is a calibration target for PIXL, carrying a sample of Teflon and of basaltic glass. Teflon has no elements PIXL can directly detect, NASA explains, so any elemental signal from that sample comes from dust resting on it. That makes it a clean place to read dust.

A second set sits on the calibration target for SHERLOC, another arm instrument. NASA says it holds five spacesuit material swatches, each three-quarters of an inch (20 millimeters) square. The team analyzed swatches of Teflon and Vectran, two materials used in spacesuits. NASA says it sent them to Mars to study how spacesuit materials hold up on the surface.

What PIXL found

According to NASA, earlier measurements on Mars resolved dust down to about 3 micrometers across. PIXL found two smaller groups. Fine particles measure less than 2.5 micrometers; NASA notes a human hair is about 70 micrometers wide. Ultrafine particles are around 100 nanometers, which NASA says is about 700 times thinner than a hair.

On PIXL's Teflon target and SHERLOC's Vectran swatch, particles averaged about 2 micrometers, NASA says. On PIXL's basaltic glass and SHERLOC's Teflon swatch, sizes ranged down to about 100 to 300 nanometers.

Static electricity appears to decide which sizes stick to which surface, NASA says. Dust grains pick up charge as they collide in the air, and different materials attract different sizes. The finest particles stayed attached through years of driving and drilling. NASA adds that the results show organic polymers like SHERLOC's Teflon sample, common in the outer layers of spacesuits, readily collect fine dust.

The study also found that some materials hold less dust than others. NASA says that could guide choices of materials and protective coatings for suits and habitats.

Chemically, the dust matches the iron- and sulfur-rich makeup earlier missions measured, NASA says. PIXL also found it enriched in phosphorus and detected signs of calcium sulfate.

Why the size matters

On Earth, airborne particles below 2.5 micrometers are tied to a range of health effects because they can reach deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream, NASA says. It adds that studies have shown ultrafine particles can travel from the nasal cavity to the brain along the olfactory nerve.

Martian dust is mostly silicate minerals and carries reactive compounds, NASA says, including perchlorates that can disrupt thyroid function and reactive iron that causes cellular damage. How much harm it does depends on how much dust a person meets and for how long, according to the scientists NASA describes. The release does not put a number on a safe exposure.

The Apollo lesson

Dust has been a problem since Apollo. NASA says lunar dust scratched visors, wore down outer spacesuit layers and damaged seals, and some crew members reported symptoms like hay fever.

Mars dust differs, NASA says. Wind-driven collisions have rounded the grains, so they are less abrasive than lunar dust. They are enriched in sulfur, chlorine and iron, and hold more silica. Regional and global dust storms can keep grains circulating in the atmosphere.

Lindsay Hays, acting director of NASA's Planetary Science Division, said in the release that Perseverance is giving engineers and flight surgeons "measurements they can use to improve our existing designs well before the first American astronauts arrive on Mars."

One detail worth noting: Perseverance's main job is the search for signs of ancient microbial life, as project scientist Katie Stack Morgan of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in the release. She said the mission was also designed to help prepare for human explorers, and the spacesuit samples are part of that effort, along with MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment) and Ingenuity.

What is next

NASA says the design ideas are already in view. Suitports, which let astronauts enter a suit attached to the outside of a habitat, and dual-chamber airlocks could reduce how much dust gets into living quarters. The release says the research can also help refine indoor dust-exposure limits for astronauts.

On the Moon, NASA says it tested an Electrodynamic Dust Shield in March 2025. The device, developed at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, used electric fields to clear lunar regolith from glass and thermal radiator surfaces, and it landed aboard Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost Mission 1. At Johnson Space Center in Houston, engineers at the Lunar Development and Test Facility use vacuum chambers and lunar regolith simulant to test spacesuit parts and a Handheld Lunar Electrostatic Dust Mitigation tool ahead of Artemis missions.

The release sets no date for any Mars suit or habitat change. What it says is that the measurements are in hand, and the engineers now have real Mars dust to design against.

Stay curious.

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