4 solar flares simultaneously erupt from the sun in rare 'super' explosion — and Earth could be hit by the fallout

An exceptionally rare,"quadruple" solar flare just exploded from four different points across the sun's surface at almost the exact same time. The components of this interconnected, explosive tetrad may have also launched a solar storm toward Earth — which could potentially slam into our planet in the coming days.

The concurrent blasts were part of one single eruption, known as a sympathetic solar flare. This type of solar outburst happens when sunspots or filaments are invisibly linked by massive magnetic field loops that arch above the solar surface. When one detonates, the others quickly follow suit. It is currently unclear what the combined power of the blast was. But given the large area covered by the sunspots, there is a decent chance that"at least some of the debris will be Earth-directed," Spaceweather.com reported. This debris would most likely be a massive cloud of plasma and radiation launched by one of the flares, known as a coronal mass ejection . If confirmed, a CME could smash into our planet in the next few days and trigger vibrant auroras near its magnetic poles.

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