After decades of cosmic peeping, astrophysicists confirmed today that black holes are as bald as billiard balls, as smooth as the apology you owe your ex, and even less likely to split ends. The universe, for its part, has responded by gleaming menacingly and filing for shine.

The result vindicates the so-called no-hair theorem, which says black holes are fully described by three numbers: mass, charge, and spin. That is either rigorous physics or the worst dating profile ever posted by a collapsed star. “Likes: angular momentum. Dislikes: follicles, your hopes.”

At a press conference, researchers presented a chart shaped like a comb that labeled every tooth “no evidence.” They then respectfully stopped where the evidence did and stared into the middle distance, which stared back, filed a noise complaint, and bent time out of spite.

Teams cross-checked gravitational-wave data, radio images, and a suspicious hairball once found in a telescope cap. The hairball turned out to be from a grad student’s cat, which turned out to be from a different department, which turned out not to exist. Peer review trimmed that subplot to a respectable fade.

“People kept asking, what if black holes have bangs?” said a researcher who had not slept since the Carter administration. “If they did, they’d be the kind of bangs that absorb light and exes. We measured for that. Nothing. Just pristine, abyssal scalp.” Methodologically, it was a close shave: they matched predictions so perfectly that the predictions asked for a restraining order.

In one trial, the team gently misted the event horizon with simulated cosmic humidity and tried to tease out stray strands using a quantum detangling comb. The comb fell in, gained mass, lost dignity, and came back as an allegory about expectations under strong gravity.

Philosophers arrived to ask whether baldness without a barber is still baldness. Physicists responded by hiding in equations the way raccoons hide in trash. Somewhere between them, a grant proposal wrote itself, sighed, and demanded better metaphors.

This is devastating news for anyone who invested in interstellar mousse futures. It is also confusing for Earth, where everything grows hair except the things we want to grow hair, like foreheads and public transportation budgets. In related developments, cosmic inflation will not be rebranded as volumizing spray.

Eager amateurs tried to replicate the study with a DIY interferometer kit, three mirrors, and a pet laser pointer named “Phobos.” They succeeded in measuring the dog. The dog, to its credit, had excellent fur and no singularities.

Baldness advocacy groups released a joint statement welcoming the universe to the club. “We reject follicular prejudice,” they wrote in bold, which is the hair of fonts. A black hole has agreed to be the new spokesperson, mostly because it already speaks for everything eventually.

Future work will investigate whether accretion disks count as toupees, whether jets are just cosmic blowouts, and whether hats are permissible under general relativity. NASA declined to comment on rumors of a classified mission to knit a beanie out of magnetic field lines, citing “budget constraints” and “the beanie ate three interns.”

In the end, the result is as clean and plain as a shaved equation: black holes have no hair, and no patience for your conditioner puns. The universe remains a glossy sphere of mystery. Please do not tap the glass unless you’re prepared to be the last thing to touch it. Also, if you find a comb near the abyss, it’s not lost; it’s orbiting the punchline.