The scientists and engineers of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, who detected gravitational waves and reported their discovery in February, have been awarded a $3 million Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. The prize will be shared between two groups of laureates: the three founders of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), who will each equally share $1 million; and 1,012 contributors to the experiment, who will each equally share $2 million. The three founders are Rainer Weiss, emeritus professor of physics at MIT; Kip Thorne, Caltech’s Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, emeritus; and Ronald Drever, emeritus professor of physics at Caltech.

Founded by a group of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, the Breakthrough Prizes recognize the world’s top scientists in life sciences, fundamental physics, and mathematics. A Special Breakthrough Prize can be awarded by the selection committee any time. The Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics and the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics are funded by a grant from the Milner Global Foundation.

The LIGO team’s observation of gravitational waves brought a 50-year search to a spectacular conclusion. Using twin instruments sensitive enough to detect distortions in spacetime as small as one thousandth the diameter of an atomic nucleus, they recorded the gravitational shudders released when two black holes spiralled ever closer together and ultimately collided in a violent merger.