Over 1,645 Martian days, NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover measured the fine and ultrafine Martian dust particles found clinging to samples of spacesuit materials that are carried aboard the rover, including some that are small enough to penetrate the lungs and enter the bloodstream. The findings will be published Tuesday, Oct. 27, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and could inform spacesuit and habitat design, dust-removal procedures, and crew health standards for future NASA missions to Mars.

“NASA has a long history of turning challenges into workable solutions and of finding creative ways to use the data that we have to answer questions beyond what it was originally collected for,” said Lindsay Hays, acting director, Planetary Science Division, NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Dust has been a surface-exploration challenge since the Apollo program.…