TurboTax this: massive black hole captured by NASA

February 2, 11:35 PMSpace News ExaminerPatricia Phillips

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Just in time for the yearly agonies of tax season, NASA has released this image of a massive black hole in Centaurus A. While we're busy figuring out TurboTax or finding a good accountant, NASA and astronomers are looking outward to study our universe.

Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) experts explain the image:

This image of Centaurus A shows a spectacular new view of a supermassive black hole's power. Jets and lobes powered by the central black hole in this nearby galaxy are shown by submillimeter data (colored orange) from the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope in Chile and X-ray data (colored blue) from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Visible light data from the Wide Field Imager on the Max-Planck/ESO 2.2 m telescope, also located in Chile, shows the dust lane in the galaxy and background stars. The X-ray jet in the upper left extends for about 13,000 light years away from the black hole. The APEX data shows that material in the jet is travelling at about half the speed of light.

Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/R.Kraft et al.; Submillimeter: MPIfR/ESO/APEX/A.Weiss et al.; Optical: ESO/WFI

As I'm terrible at paperwork and have never understood a single tax form, I think I'll see if I can find a form to help my anxiety and angst over taxes. Maybe I can find a form for  "sorry this is late and garbled but I've been watching black holes in outer space. Is there a deduction for that?"