A group of more than 1,000 physicists have been awarded a special $3 million prize for their work in discovering gravitational waves. 

The discovery, made in February, confirmed a theory first put forward by Albert Einstein. Scientists confirmed the discovery after detecting the gravitational shudders of two black holes as they approached and finally collided with one another. 

Aside from the scientific plaudits, the researchers will now share $3 million in prize money awarded by the Special Breakthrough Foundation. The Foundation is backed by Silicon Valley gurus including Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and seeks to raise scientists' public profile. 

The three scientists acknowledged as having done the lion's share of the work on gravitational waves - MIT professor Rainer Weiss and Caltech professors Ronald W.P. Drever and Kip S. Thorne - will share $1 million, with the experiment's remaining 1,012 contributors splitting the other $2 million. 

Iconic physicist Stephen Hawking, who won the Special Breakthrough Prize in 2013, said, "This discovery has huge significance: firstly, as evidence for general relativity and its predictions of black hole interactions, and secondly as the beginning of a new astronomy that will reveal the universe through a different medium. The LIGO team richly deserves the Special Breakthrough Prize."