Beloved physicist Hawking mourned

Millions of Chinese mourned the death on Wednesday of globally admired British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, 76, for his indomitable spirit and insightful probing of cosmic mysteries.

Netizens flooded Hawking's official Weibo account to bid farewell after the news broke in China around noon. They left more than 50,000 new comments in five hours under his last update, when he lauded young pop star Wang Junkai in November for caring about life beyond Earth.

"Cherish the memory of Mr Hawking. You forever belong to the stars and universe, and your teachings will forever be in my heart," Wang wrote, ending his sentence with a candle emoji.