Iain M Banks got it right....
"The ship had displaced Linter's body. I wanted him buried on Earth, but he'd left specific conventional instructions before he got here, and the ship sad we should honour them. He would be sent into the sun, in our tradition, so that in a million years he'd return as light to the planet he somehow loved."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRl9D_agLbU&feature=youtu.be&t=40m52s