ESA beams 6-min music of hope and peace during Stephen Hawking’ memorial service

On March 14, 2018, the world and especially the scientific community lost its star aka Stephen Hawking who died at the age of 76 years after developing health complications at his home in Cambridge. Today, Hawking ashes were interred at the Westminster Abbey in London. But that’s not all. European Space Agency (ESA) paid tribute to the late Professor Stephen Hawking after it beamed a 6-minute music in Hawking’s voice to the closest-known hole during his memorial service.

Hawking who is a renowned astrophysicist who has contributed immensely to the field of black holes. Earlier, he theorized that black holes emit a type of thermal radiation which was later named on him as “Hawking radiation”. In fact, he published a new research paper on the universe and its existence right before he died on his deathbed.

According to the reports, the 6-minute music was written by Vangelis who wrote scores for Chariots of Fire, Blade Runner, and Cosmos: A Personal Voyage and other scientific docuseries in order to pay tribute to the late professor. The music contains a message of hope and peace from Hawking in his wrote synthetic voice that was beamed by ESA towards black hole 1A 0620-00 which is the closest-known black hole. The music was beamed from ESA’ ground station in Spain.

Talking about the black hole, it is located a staggering 3,500 light-years away from the Earth. It is located right between a binary system with an orange dwarf star where it would take centuries before the message reaches the black hole where it will be frozen at the event horizon. Everyone who attended the memorial service received a copy of the music. Hawking’s ashes were interred in a special place beside the graves of Charles Darwin and Sir Isaac Newton in the Scientists’ Croner at the Westminster Abbey which is a place reserved for people who made significant breakthroughs over the years.