High-resolution images of the sun taken by a European telescope revealed a terrifying look at the surface of a star in our solar system.

The images were taken by the Gregor Solar Telescope, located at the TED Observatory in Tenerife, Spain. It is run by German scientists at the Leibniz Institute for Solar Physics.

They give a detailed view of the distorted structure of solar plasma and sunlight – the Sun’s magnetic field is abnormally high, the pressure rises, the temperature drops and the surrounding atmosphere darkens.

The Gregor Telescope was launched in 2012 and underwent a major redesign this year, with the corona virus suspended due to pandemic. It now offers a width of 50 km – or 31 miles, which is as small as 1.4 million kilometers or 870,000 miles in diameter.

“It’s like someone saw a needle on a perfectly sharp soccer field a kilometer away,” said a press release announcing the photos.

“It was a very exciting project, and very challenging,” Lucia Clint, who led Gregor’s reform, said in a statement. “Within a year, we had completely redesigned the optics, mechanics and electronics to achieve better image quality.”

Daniel K. of Hawaii. Inoi posted similar photos of the sun’s surface taken by the solar telescope in January, sparking social media reactions from those who commented that the star’s hot plasma resembles popcorn kernels.