The richest awards in science were handed out Sunday night when the Breakthrough Prize organization gave a total of $21.9 million to physicists, mathematicians, life scientists and one talented high school student. Scientists got the red carpet treatment as luminaries from Hollywood and Silicon Valley handed out these prizes.

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According to New York Times, the awards take the form of seven $3 million awards, one of which was divided among around 1,300 physicists; $400,000 to a high school student for creating a video communicating a scientific concept and $500,000 split among eight early-career researchers.

"This is our moment to celebrate scientific glory," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, one of the Breakthrough Prizes founders. "Through science, we have an awesome chance as a society: We get to see the world as it can be and not as it is."

The Breakthrough Prizes was founded in 2012 by great technologists Jack Ma and Cathy Zhang, Sergey Brin and his ex-wife, Anne Wojcicki, Yuri Milner and his artist wife, Julia Milner, and Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan. The $3 million prizes are the richest in their fields, often, they are awarded to more than one activity in each category and recognizing the contributions of team members, reported Phys News.

Among the 10 awards, five went to researchers working in the life sciences, including:

Svante Paabo, he has pioneered efforts to convert ancient DNA to learn more about the beginning of our species.

Karl Deisseroth, a bioengineer and neuroscientist at Stanford who is elaborating a field known as optogenetics.

Edward Boyden, another optogenetics researcher at MIT. He is using the technology to know how networks in the brain results to thoughts and emotions, and to see if they can modify those networks to advance the lives of patients who may have conditions like Parkinson's disease and epilepsy.

John Hardy, a geneticist and molecular biologist has been studying Alzheimer's disease since the 1980s.

Dr. Helen Hobbs, who studies how DNA variants make a group of people more (or less) susceptible to cardiovascular and liver diseases.

According to LA Times, the Breakthrough Prizes were given out at the NASA Ames Research Center in the heart of Silicon Valley. The Golden Globes-style event was hosted by Seth MacFarlane who is the executive producer of the 2014 reboot of the "Cosmos" documentary series. Pharrell Williams serenaded the winners and feted by NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, currently serving at the International Space Station. A prerecorded message from physicist Stephen Hawking kicked off the telecast.

The Breakthrough ceremony was aired on the National Geographic Channel and will be rebroadcast on Fox on Nov. 29.

TagsBreakthrough Prizes, Advances in Life Sciences