It's unclear from the angle of the explosions (relative to Earth) from where they emanated, but the space weather tracking site SpaceWeather.com suggested it would be a sunspot, or a dark concentration of magnetic activity on the sun's surface.

Related: The sun's wrath: Worst solar storms in history.

—The sun's wrath: Worst solar storms in history.

This year is towards the beginning of a new 11-year cycle of solar activity, which began in December 2019.

It's unclear exactly how strong this forthcoming solar cycle will be, although solar cycle 25 (the current cycle) has a general consensus among scientists that the average number of sunspots will be lower than usual: a range of 95 to 130 at peak, compared with a typical 140 to 220 sunspots.

NASA's SDO is one of a range of telescopes and spacecraft that gaze at the sun in an attempt to improve solar weather predictions.

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Elizabeth Howell is a contributing writer for Space.com who is one of the few Canadian journalists to report regularly on space exploration.

To see her latest projects, follow Elizabeth on Twitter at @howellspace