Taurid Meteor Behind the Dazzling Fireworks Across Southern Californian Sky? [Video]

Local news channels across Southern California were flooded with reports of people spotting a fast-moving fireball in the sky.

The event occurred at about 8pm PST. People who witnessed the fireball said that it broke-up while moving across the sky.

Matthew Isaacs, from Mission Viejo, was driving when the meteor blazed across the sky.

"I saw this big, greenish flash like, light up the sky. It was headed pretty sideways from like, east to west. I thought, 'Is that a firework?' And then I realized, that couldn't be that big. It's just in the middle of nowhere in a totally dark area where there's no houses or anything where anyone would shoot fireworks. I thought, 'Man, it must have been a meteor,'" Isaacs told KCBS.

Space.com had earlier reported that bright streaks of light across the sky this week could be the spectacular South Taurid meteors, which come from the direction of the constellation Taurus. The showers appear each year between October and November. The chunks of rocks lighting up the sky are quite slow, moving at about 18 miles per hour.

"They're rocks in outer space. They're chunks of asteroids, called meteoroids. They're flying into the Earth's atmosphere and they're burning up. It's kind of like when astronauts return to the Earth's atmosphere and there is all that heat during re-entry. Same idea. These rocks are literally burning up. And that's what you're seeing," Dr. Laura Danly, a curator at the Griffith Observatory told KCAL9′s Serene Branson.

Check the American Meteor Society's website for more details about future meteor showers.