Attracting the top spot in media coverage during the past year was the galaxy NGC 6240, which was discovered to have not one, but two supermassive black holes orbiting each other in the nucleus of the galaxy.

As the first definite identification of a binary supermassive black hole system, this discovery stimulated a great deal of scientific interest, and a flood of questions. People wanted to know when the two black holes would merge (a few hundred million years), whether the galaxy would survive (yes), whether we would survive (yes), and if the merger had happened already, given that NGC 6240 is 400 million light years away (probably). [Full Story]