The Doomsday Clock, a symbol of how close humanity is to catastrophic destruction, has reached its most alarming setting yet.

On Tuesday, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists announced that the clock has been moved forward by four seconds, now standing at just 85 seconds to midnight.

This marks the closest the clock has ever been to midnight in its 79-year existence, suggesting that experts believe the threat of a global catastrophe in 2026 is more severe than ever before.

The decision to adjust the clock was influenced by several global threats, including the risk of nuclear warfare, climate change, emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, and the development of synthetic biological entities known as ‘mirror life.’

“Every second counts, and our time is running out,” stated Alexandra Bell, President and CEO of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. “This stark truth is our current reality, and we have never been closer to midnight.”

Established in 1947 by a Chicago-based nonprofit, the Doomsday Clock was originally set during the Cold War era, reflecting the ongoing tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and the looming threat of nuclear disaster.

This is the second year in a row that the Doomsday Clock has moved closer to midnight – the hypothetical point where the world will end. Until 2020, the clock had never been closer than two minutes to midnight.

Daniel Holz, chair of the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board, said: ‘Last year, we warned that the world was perilously close to catastrophe and that countries needed to change course towards international cooperation and action on the most critical and existential risks. Unfortunately, the opposite has happened.’ 

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved the ‘Doomsday Clock’ four seconds closer to midnight – the theoretical point of world annihilation

The US, Israel, Iran, and Russia all warned in 2025 that a catastrophic global war could be nearing as the crisis in the Middle East and Ukraine reached a breaking point 

Holz added that nuclear-armed nations became even more adversarial and nationalistic in 2025 and influenced the four-second jump, the largest move forward since 2023 when scientists cut it from 100 to 90 seconds to midnight.

‘The latest remaining treaty governing nuclear weapon stockpiles between the US and Russia expires next week. For the first time in over half a century, there will be nothing preventing a runaway nuclear arms race,’ Holz revealed. 

Any time the Doomsday Clock has moved forward has been said to signify humanity’s failures to make progress in solving the global threats of the past 12 months.

Every year, the Doomsday Clock has been updated based on how close humanity theoretically is to total annihilation.

If the clock goes forward and gets a few minutes or seconds closer to midnight (compared with where it was set the previous year), it suggests humanity has moved closer to self-destruction.

If it moves further away from midnight, it suggests humanity has lowered the risks of global catastrophe since the same point last year.

In some years, the hands of the clock don’t move at all, suggesting global tensions and threats worldwide haven’t changed for better or worse.

It has been moving steadily closer to the predicted end of the world since 2011, when it was still six minutes from midnight. 

In 2025, the US, Iran, and Israel were involved in a deadly conflict in the Middle East, with the US sending a precision bombing mission to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities

The Bulletin’s Science and Security Board added that climate change has also escalated over the last year, with global sea levels reaching record highs.

‘Droughts, floods, fires, and storms continue to intensify and become more erratic, and this will only get worse,’ Holz predicted.

Additionally, the expert warned of ‘mirror life,’ which are synthetic organisms built completely backwards compared to normal DNA, which scientists believe could help develop advanced medicines.

However, many scientists fear the threat posed by these lab-made substances, as they are totally incompatible with normal DNA, raising the threat of an unstoppable pandemic.

‘Despite repeated warnings from scientists worldwide, the international community has no coordinated plan and the world remains unprepared for potentially devastating biological threats,’ Holz said. 

As for so-called ‘disruptive technologies,’ the security board’s chair singled out artificial intelligence (AI) for ‘supercharging mis- and disinformation.’ 

Dr Leonard Rieser, Chairman of the Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, moves the hand of the Doomsday Clock back to 17 minutes before midnight at offices near the University of Chicago on November 26, 1991

Last year, the Bulletin moved the clock to 89 seconds to midnight, citing the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, conflicts in the Middle East, the threat of nuclear war, climate change, a potential bird flu pandemic, and the so-called ‘arms race’ to develop AI.

Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has led to Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II, with unconfirmed estimates estimating the death toll reaching one million people in 2026.

Meanwhile, multiple conflicts involving the US broke out in the last year, as the Trump Administration launched a bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities and arrested Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife during a covert raid in Caracas.

Tensions have even flared between the US and its allies in NATO, as President Trump vies to take control of Greenland, a current territory of Denmark, citing its importance to national security against Russia and China.

‘If the world splinters into an “us versus them” zero-sum approach, it increases the likelihood that we all lose,’ Holz warned. 

Although symbolic and not an actual clock, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists unveiled a physical ‘quarter clock’ model at an event on Tuesday when they delivered the news of their estimate for 2026.

After the unveiling, the model can be found located at the Bulletin offices in the Keller Center, home to the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. 

The Doomsday Clock goes back to June 1947, when US artist Martyl Langsdorf was hired to design a new cover for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists journal 

Every January, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists reveals its annual update to the Doomsday Clock – even if the hands are not moved.

The Doomsday Clock officially came into existence in June 1947, when US artist Martyl Langsdorf was hired to design a new cover for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists journal.

With a striking image on the cover, the organization hoped to ‘frighten men into rationality’ as the Cold War seemed destined to go nuclear, according to Eugene Rabinowitch, the first editor of the journal.

The clock was initially set at seven minutes to midnight because ‘it looked good to my eye,’ Langsdorf later said.

On the cover of later issues, the hands of the clock were adjusted based on how close civilization was estimated to be to catastrophe.

After the Soviet Union successfully tested its first atomic bomb in 1949, Rabinowitch reset the clock from seven minutes to midnight to three minutes to midnight.

Since then, it has continued to move forward and backwards, now moving within a minute and a half of total destruction.

In 2009, the Bulletin ceased its print edition, but the clock has still been updated once a year on its website and is now a much-anticipated highlight of the scientific community.