Hawking said his first trip to China was in 1985, when he traveled across the country by train.
"In my physical travels, I have only been able to touch the surface of your fascinating history and culture," Hawking said in the post, using the signature S.H. to indicate he was personally making the entry.
Stories and features about him also went viral on WeChat.
"Hawking just left his wheelchair and flew to the stars," commented one netizen.
"He just entered another space -- may he rest in happiness," said another WeChat user.
AN INSPIRATION FOR ALL AND FOREVER
Hawking's A Brief History of Time has long been a bestseller in China's bookstores. On Douban.com, China's leading book rating platform, several hundred readers have put the Chinese version of the book into the category of "want to read" within hours of his passing.
According to Douban's book entry, more than 5,000 people are currently reading the book, over 27,000 have read it and another 26,800 want to.
Amazon's China site has launched a webpage dedicated to Hawking, saying that reading the master's classics is the best way to pay tributes to him.
A Brief History of Time remains the first place on the sales list of the website under the category of astronomy, which is refreshed every hour.
On China's major online book retailer Dangdang.com, this book received more than 240,000 comments and ranked second in the past 24 hours on the sales list of science education.
EXPLORATION NEVER ENDS
In 2015, Hawking participated in launching the Breakthrough Listen program to search for intelligent extraterrestrial communications in the Universe.
The FAST radio telescope in China also joined the initiative for a coordinated search, including the rapid sharing of promising new signals for additional observation and analysis.
Located in a naturally deep and round karst depression in southwest China's Guizhou Province, the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), the world's largest single-dish radio telescope, has a receiving area equivalent to about 30 football fields.
Since FAST started trial operations in September 2016, it has discovered 51 stars, which bear features similar to pulsars, and 11 of them have been confirmed as new pulsars by observatories in other countries.
Li Di, chief scientist of the NAOC radio astronomy division, said an individual scientist's curiosity is closely bound up with the fate of all mankind. Every step forward, no matter how small, is a precious treasure for the world.
"In this regard, Professor Hawking set a noble example for all Chinese scientists," Li said.
