“Constellation prize” haiku

Sons of Perseus
Cosmic radiance no myth
Lighting the night sky

Perfect atmosphere
For Smith-Tuttle to put on
Its annual show

Meteor shower
What better way for comet
To clean up its act?

“Tears of St. Lawrence”
To some Catholics: Sparks rain down
On that martyr’s day

A.D. 36
First record of these fireworks
Credit the Chinese

1835
Adolphe Quetelet noted they
Appear every year

We could’ve told Dolph
What goes around comes around
But he told us when

Satellite competes
This time ’round, but pre-dawn moon
Will Gibbous a break

Year’s best viewing wanes
Better look this up tonight
Check Google today

“Going viral” haiku

Posted on May 31, 2013 by Greg Hack

Julius Richard Petri, May 31, 1852 — Dec. 20, 1921

Berlin scientist
Julius Richard Petri
What a cultured guy

Enabled lab work
Ugly, gross — yet breakthrough was
Really quite a dish

Agar ‘orrible
Bacteria multiplied
But aided research

His round glass dishes
Became standard equipment
And are to this day

Today’s Doodle shows
Half-dozen cultures growing
Some colorful stuff

Smelly sock, doorknob,
Keyboard, dog drool, soil and sponge
Yield exquisite gunk

So thanks, JRP
Bacteriology just
Wouldn’t be the same

And I would’ve wrapped
Your birthday present but was
All out of barf bags

Catch a birthday wave
Electromagnetically
Google salutes Hertz

Hertz was first to prove
Electromagnetic waves
Really existed

Showed radio waves,
Light had same velocity
Could be transmitted

Thought his findings were
“Of no use whatsoever”
Boy, he got that wrong

Led to radio
And wireless telegraph,
Rent-a-cars (kidding)

They named the unit
Of radio frequency
The hertz after him

And that’s Heinrich Hertz
Not Heinrich’s uncle Hertz Hertz
Then we’d have hertz squared