Record-breaking black hole merger confirms Stephen Hawking's theory
A new gravitational wave signal, GW250114, captured in January 2025, gave scientists the clearest look yet at two black holes merging.
This record-breaking event, spotted by teams from Caltech, MIT, Virgo, and KAGRA, let researchers run some of the most precise tests ever on how black holes work.
Merging black holes and the surface area puzzle
By measuring the surface areas of both black holes before and after they merged, scientists provided the most compelling observational evidence to date for Stephen Hawking's famous idea: a black hole's total surface area never shrinks.
Even as energy is lost in gravitational waves and spin increases, the final black hole ended up just a bit bigger—matching what Hawking predicted over 50 years ago.
Cosmic echoes and the sound of science
The team also picked up unique "ringing" sounds after the merger—like cosmic echoes—that were consistent with Einstein's general relativity and Roy Kerr's math about spinning black holes.
This is a big deal for physics because it shows our best theories are still holding up under extreme cosmic tests.
New era in black hole research
GW250114 isn't just another space headline—it opens new ways to study what happens when black holes collide.
With clearer data than ever before, scientists can dig deeper into these mysterious objects and maybe even uncover new physics down the line.