Overview

• The LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA collaboration reported GW250114 in Physical Review Letters, marking a near twin of the original GW150914 event.
• The analysis shows the final horizon area is not smaller than the sum of the two progenitors, delivering the most precise observational test of Hawking’s area theorem to date.
• Researchers isolated the post-merger ringdown and found its frequencies and damping consistent with a Kerr black hole as predicted by general relativity.
• Detector upgrades over the past decade made the signal roughly four times clearer than the first detection, enabling tighter mass and spin measurements before and after coalescence.
• The result caps a decade that expanded the catalog to more than 300 gravitational-wave events, with further sensitivity upgrades planned even as U.S. budget proposals create uncertainty for operations.