The periods of weightlessness provided valuable insights into the unusual ways that bubbles behave in outer space. If you heat a pan of water in normal gravity, small bubbles form and shoot upwards because they are lighter than the surrounding fluid. Without gravity, these gas pockets can't rise and tend to adhere to the surface where they initiated. On Earth, rising bubbles carry heat away from a hot surface. This doesn't happen in space and the vapour can trap heat, eventually causing damage.
Immobile bubbles can also clog critical tubes and pipes.
The Vomit Comet flights gave Herman a chance to test her theory that electric fields could jar bubbles loose and move them away from the surface where they formed. Her team constructed a transparent cube and filled it with an electrically insulating fluid. Inside, the researchers installed a cylindrical high-voltage electrode and a ground electrode. During the plane's weightless periods air was injected into the chamber to form bubbles. Team members used a high-speed video camera to carefully document the behavior of the bubbles, and they plan to quantify their results in the coming weeks.