Evidence for Stephen Hawking's unproven black hole theory may have just been found — at the bottom of the sea

An illustration of jagged white lines emerging from a black hole.

Five decades ago, famed astrophysicist Stephen Hawking theorized that the Big Bang may have flooded the universe with tiny black holes. Now, researchers believe they may have seen one explode.

In Feb. 2025, the European collaboration KM3NeT — which consists of underwater detectors off the coasts of France, Italy and Greece — announced the discovery of a stupendously powerful neutrino. This ghostly particle had an energy of around 100 PeV — over 25 times more energetic than the particles accelerated in the Large Hadron Collider, the world's most powerful atom smasher.