Image Credit: Vadim Sadovski/Shutterstock.com
On Earth, dust particles eventually settle on a surface, where they can get sucked up by a vacuum cleaner or wiped up with a cloth. This does not happen on the International Space Station (ISS). Dust is common on the ISS, however, the tiny particles do not settle on a surface: they simply drift in the air.
In a recent study, researchers cataloged various on-board particulate matter found in two used vacuum bags from the ISS using scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM/EDX), and single-particle multi-element inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (sp-ICP).