Stephen Hawking's peace message was launched from Ávila

Lionel Hernández of the Europea Space Agency's (ESA's) centre in Ávila said the message went up at exactly 13.40 mainland Spain time, or 12.40 in the UK, on Friday as the award-winning physics expert's ashes were buried in London.

It was sent in the direction of the black hole closest to Earth, known as 1A 0620-00, which is 3,000 light years away, with the exact coordinates indicating its location supplied by the ESA operation centre in Darmstadt, Germany.

The file sent out was a composition created from Hawking's famous synthesised voice and music by the Greek composer behind the Chariots of Fire soundtrack, Vangelis, and took 30 minutes to transmit.

Hernández admitted that the launching of the message was only a symbolic action in reality, since the black hole it was aiming for is around a billion kilometres from Earth and, even travelling at the speed of light, would take thousands of years to reach its destination.

The Cebreros DSA 2 (Deep Space Antenna) is one of only three in the world of its type created by the ESA, along with the one in New Norcia, Australia and Marlargüe, Argentina.

It opened in September 2005 and its antenna measures 35 metres in diameter, and capable of communicating with spaceships on other planets or in orbits a very long way away from Earth.