ALMA telescope reveals the Sun in new light

This is a better writeup [1] but only includes one of the figures. For some context, the ALMA observatory is a radio telescope array that works at wavelengths of around a millimeter. The images show the intensity of the radio emission and are only in a false-color black-orange color scheme. These are the best images ever taken of the Sun at these wavelengths, you can see that the first two "zoom in images" are essentially focused just on that black pip centered in the third figure.

One thing that makes ALMA unique for these kind of observations is that it can actually observe the Sun--without melting the secondary mirrors from the focused sunlight that is. The antennas are designed to be reflective in the radio, but diffusely scatter optical and infrared light in all directions. The Swedish SEST observatory was not so lucky, and after accidentally pointing at the Sun it's secondary mirror burst into flames (see footnote 2 in [1], here are some pictures [2]).

[1] https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-01/e-aso011717....

[2] https://www.eso.org/public/images/?search=%2Bsest+%2Bfire (see footnote two in above)