As Hawking’s ashes are buried, his voice is beamed into space

The universe that Stephen Hawking spent a lifetime studying now knows his voice.

Following Hawking’s death in March, the renowned British physicist, who had battled a debilitating degenerative motor neuron disease for decades, was remembered at a memorial service Friday at Westminster Abbey. His ashes were buried between Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton in a corner that honors some of Britain’s greatest scientists and later covered with a gravestone — etched with an equation he used to teach the world about black holes.

But at the same time his ashes were lowered into the ground, his voice was beamed from Earth thousands of light-years away toward the nearest known black hole in the universe.

Family members, friends, fellow scientists and celebrities gathered Friday afternoon at Hawking’s memorial service in London.

Guests also included 1,000 members of the public selected by ballot from 25,000 applicants. A private funeral service was held in March.

The equation on the gravestone was one he used to theorize that black holes are not completely black but faintly leak thermal radiation. That equation accompanied a depiction of a black hole along with the words, “Here lies what was mortal of Stephen Hawking, 1942-2018.”

Greek composer Vangelis — most famous for his Academy Award-winning score to “Chariots of Fire” — set Hawking’s voice to an original piece of music, which was sent into space through a massive antenna at European Space Agency’s ground station in Spain.

BEN STANSALL/GETTY Lucy Hawking, the daughter of Stephen Hawking, places flowers at the site where his ashes were interred Friday in London’s Westminster Abbey during a memorial service. The scientist, whose book “A Brief History of Time” sold 9 million copies, died in...