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In a rare event, four solar flares simultaneously exploded from four different points across the Sun's surface.

The "quadruple" solar flare might have also sent a solar storm towards Earth, which could reach our planet in the coming days, Spaceweather.com reported. 

According to NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, the tetrad eruption started at around 01:00 am EDT (10:30 am IST) on Tuesday (April 23). While three of the outbursts came from sunspots, one came from a magnetic filament, a large loop of plasma suspended over the solar surface between the three dark patches.

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The eruption sites were hundreds of miles away. The area between them covered around a third of the solar surface facing Earth. 

Such concurrent blasts, called sympathetic solar flares, are part of a single eruption. It occurs when massive magnetic field loops that arch above the solar surface link these sunspots or filaments with each other. When one of them erupts, the others quickly follow.

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In most cases, sympathetic flares linked two sunspots, ranging in intensity from small outbursts to X-class flares, the strongest solar flares the Sun can produce. However this time, there were twice as many flares as usual, making it a "super-sympathetic" flare. 

It is currently uncertain how powerful the blast was when the sunspots combined. However, due to the large area affected, there is a possibility that some of the debris could be directed towards Earth. This debris would likely be a massive cloud of plasma and radiation, called a coronal mass ejection (CME). If confirmed, the CME could hit our planet within the next few days and cause stunning auroras near the magnetic poles.

It is the third sympathetic solar flare of 2024. The first occurred in January, followed by an X-class flare duo in March. 

According to a study conducted in 2022, sympathetic solar flares are more likely to happen during or around solar maximum, the most active phase of the Sun's approximately 11-year solar cycle.

The study analysed almost 40 years of solar flare data. Some researchers think this explosive peak has already started about a year earlier than predicted.

(With inputs from agencies)