Tuesday, 10 February, 2026
The sharpest black hole collision ever detected just gave Einstein another win—and raised hopes that the next one might rewrite gravity.
For scientists who follow gravitational waves as they arrive from deep space, GW250114 stands out as an extraordinary event. It is the most precise gravitational wave signal ever captured from a pair of merging black holes, offering researchers a rare chance to closely examine Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity, known as general relativity.
“What’s fantastic is the event is pretty much identical to the first one we observed 10 years ago, GW150914. The reason it’s so much clearer is purely because our detectors have become much more accurate in the past 10 years,” said Cornell physicist Keefe Mitman, a NASA Hubble Postdoctoral Fellow at the Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Mitman is one of the authors of the study that analyzed this signal, titled “Black Hole Spectroscopy and Tests of General Relativity with GW250114,” which was published in Physical Review Letters on January 29. The research was carried out by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration along with the Virgo Collaboration in Italy and the KAGRA Collaboration in Japan. Scientists from Cornell have been deeply involved in the LIGO-VIRGO-KAGRA effort since it began in the early 1990s.
The gravitational wave called GW250114 was produced when two black holes crashed into one another, sending ripples through space-time. That signal reached the U.S.-based Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatories (LIGO) on January 14, 2025.
Gravitational waves are named using the date they are detected, and the LIGO-VIRGO-KAGRA team announced this event publicly in September 2025. According to the researchers’ analysis, the signal matches the predictions of general relativity. At the same time, scientists believe future black hole mergers may behave differently, creating opportunities to explore the basic laws that govern the universe.
When two black holes merge, the newly formed black hole vibrates in a way that resembles a ringing bell. These vibrations produce distinct tones that are defined by two measurements, Mitman explained: an oscillatory frequency and a damping time. Detecting a single tone allows scientists to estimate the mass and spin of the resulting black hole. Detecting two or more tones makes it possible to perform multiple independent measurements of those same properties, as predicted by general relativity.
“If those two measurements agree with one another, you are effectively verifying general relativity,” Mitman said. “But if you measure two tones that don’t match up with the same mass and spin combination, you can start to probe how much you’ve deviated away from general relativity’s predictions.”
In the case of GW250114, the signal was strong enough for researchers to measure two distinct tones and place limits on a third. All of those measurements were consistent with Einstein’s theory.
What would it have meant if the tones had not agreed?
“Then we would have had a lot of work to do as physicists to try to explain what’s going on and what the true theory of gravity would be in our universe,” Mitman said. He and his collaborators think it is possible that future gravitational wave detections will not fully follow general relativity, potentially shedding light on unanswered questions.
Many physicists already suspect that general relativity cannot be the final description of gravity. As Mitman noted, the theory does not explain gravitational phenomena linked to dark energy and dark matter, and it breaks down when scientists attempt to reconcile it with the laws that describe the quantum realm.
“There has to be some way to resolve this paradox to make our theory of gravity consistent with our theory of quantum mechanics,” Mitman said. “Along those lines, we expect there to be some deviation from Einstein’s classical prediction, where you might see signatures of quantum gravity imprinting themselves on these gravitational wave signals.
“The hope is that we’ll see these deviations one day and that will help guide us along what the true theory of quantum gravity might be.”
Reference: “Black Hole Spectroscopy and Tests of General Relativity with GW250114” by A. G. Abac, et.al., 29 January 2026, Physical Review Letters.
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The sharpest black hole collision ever detected just gave Einstein another win—and raised hopes that the next one might rewrite gravity.
For scientists who follow gravitational waves as they arrive from deep space, GW250114 stands out as an extraordinary event. It is the most precise gravitational wave signal ever captured from a pair of merging black holes, offering researchers a rare chance to closely examine Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity, known as general relativity.
“What’s fantastic is the event is pretty much identical to the first one we observed 10 years ago, GW150914. The reason it’s so much clearer is purely because our detectors have become much more accurate in the past 10 years,” said Cornell physicist Keefe Mitman, a NASA Hubble Postdoctoral Fellow at the Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Mitman is one of the authors of the study that analyzed this signal, titled “Black Hole Spectroscopy and Tests of General Relativity with GW250114,” which was published in Physical Review Letters on January 29. The research was carried out by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration along with the Virgo Collaboration in Italy and the KAGRA Collaboration in Japan. Scientists from Cornell have been deeply involved in the LIGO-VIRGO-KAGRA effort since it began in the early 1990s.
The gravitational wave called GW250114 was produced when two black holes crashed into one another, sending ripples through space-time. That signal reached the U.S.-based Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatories (LIGO) on January 14, 2025.
Gravitational waves are named using the date they are detected, and the LIGO-VIRGO-KAGRA team announced this event publicly in September 2025. According to the researchers’ analysis, the signal matches the predictions of general relativity. At the same time, scientists believe future black hole mergers may behave differently, creating opportunities to explore the basic laws that govern the universe.
When two black holes merge, the newly formed black hole vibrates in a way that resembles a ringing bell. These vibrations produce distinct tones that are defined by two measurements, Mitman explained: an oscillatory frequency and a damping time. Detecting a single tone allows scientists to estimate the mass and spin of the resulting black hole. Detecting two or more tones makes it possible to perform multiple independent measurements of those same properties, as predicted by general relativity.
“If those two measurements agree with one another, you are effectively verifying general relativity,” Mitman said. “But if you measure two tones that don’t match up with the same mass and spin combination, you can start to probe how much you’ve deviated away from general relativity’s predictions.”
In the case of GW250114, the signal was strong enough for researchers to measure two distinct tones and place limits on a third. All of those measurements were consistent with Einstein’s theory.
What would it have meant if the tones had not agreed?
“Then we would have had a lot of work to do as physicists to try to explain what’s going on and what the true theory of gravity would be in our universe,” Mitman said. He and his collaborators think it is possible that future gravitational wave detections will not fully follow general relativity, potentially shedding light on unanswered questions.
Many physicists already suspect that general relativity cannot be the final description of gravity. As Mitman noted, the theory does not explain gravitational phenomena linked to dark energy and dark matter, and it breaks down when scientists attempt to reconcile it with the laws that describe the quantum realm.
“There has to be some way to resolve this paradox to make our theory of gravity consistent with our theory of quantum mechanics,” Mitman said. “Along those lines, we expect there to be some deviation from Einstein’s classical prediction, where you might see signatures of quantum gravity imprinting themselves on these gravitational wave signals.
“The hope is that we’ll see these deviations one day and that will help guide us along what the true theory of quantum gravity might be.”
Reference: “Black Hole Spectroscopy and Tests of General Relativity with GW250114” by A. G. Abac, et.al., 29 January 2026, Physical Review Letters.
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