More than five decades after Stephen Hawking proposed his controversial black hole area theorem, physicists have finally confirmed it with the most detailed observation to date of a black hole merger. The two black holes, weighing 33 and 32 solar masses respectively, spiralled into each other and merged into a new black hole of 62 solar masses. The team successfully identified two distinct frequencies in the ringdown phase, a first for any real black hole detection. LIGO now detects a black hole merger roughly every three days, thanks to innovations like quantum squeezing, ultra-pure mirror coatings, and AI-enhanced data filtering. Scientists hope they’ll be able to “hear” black hole mergers from the earliest eras of the universe, perhaps within just a few years.