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Science’s richest prizes, the Breakthrough Awards, were presented at a star-studded ceremony in California last night. Seven prizes, each worth $3 million, were awarded to a total of 34 scientists and mathematicians in three categories — fundamental physics, life sciences and mathematics.

In physics, the big cash went to the 27 members of the team that mapped the temperature of cosmic microwave background using NASA’s WMAP satellite. The pattern of hot and cold spots in this radiation leftover from the big bang 13.7 billion years ago has advanced our understanding of the origins and the evolution of the universe and transformed cosmology into a precision science.

at the University of Utah and at the University of California San Diego share the Breakthrough Prize in mathematics for their contributions to algebraic geometry. This field of mathematics has done well recently, netting $1 million in 2013.

Film star glamour

With Hollywood’s finest in attendance, the ceremony and the winners grab tabloid column inches like no other science prize does.

For one night, a hangar at NASA’s Ames in Moffett Field transforms into a glitzy set complete with red carpet and A-listers from the worlds of entertainment and technology. This year’s show was hosted by actor Morgan Freeman, with Ashton Kucher and Mila Kunis among the star presenters and a performance from hip hop artist Wiz Khalifa.

The Breakthrough Prize was founded in 2012 by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, Anne Wojcicki, Yuri and Julia Milner, and Sergey Brin.

Five prizes of $3 million each went to researchers in the life sciences. at University of California, San Diego receives the prize for insights at the molecular level into diseases of the brain and nervous system, including an inherited form of motor neurone and Huntingdon diseases.

Cash prizes

Geneticist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute is recognised for discovering the molecular mechanisms that drive how plants modify their growth in response to light and shade.

at the University of Oxford is honoured for understanding how diseases such as cancer can be caused by DNA folding up on itself into cells in particular ways.

at the University of California in San Francsico and at Kyoto University both receive $3 million for their work understanding how a quality control system inside cells detects unfolded proteins that could cause disease and then takes corrective action.

A further seven prizes worth $100,000 each goes to early career scientists for their achievements physics and mathematics. The Breakthrough Junior Challenge prize is awarded to teenagers who best describe a scientific concept in a video.