Few people stop to consider what a remarkable structure the soap bubble is. It consists of a thin layer of water sandwiched between two layers of soap molecules.

This means that the water in the soap film moves principally in two dimensions.

Researchers at the Los Alamos laboratory in the United States have for the first time measured the properties of the thin layer of water across an entire soap film. Previously scientists had just one or two spot measurements.

They added highly reflective micro-particles of titanium dioxide and snapped the film with a digital camera many times a second.

They were able to see the complex patterns of turbulence in the thin film. Turbulence is a highly complicated phenomenon with the water molecules moving at times in an ordered way and then seemingly at random.

Turbulence occurs almost everywhere. From the atmospheres of the Earth and other planets, to the currents in the oceans, the surface of the Sun and the clouds of gas in space out of which new stars are born.