During the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, the Doomsday Clock remained at 7 minutes to midnight, its setting since 1960, because updates only happen at scheduled meetings, but the crisis's resolution led to it moving further away in 1963. While the crisis itself felt like the brink of nuclear war, the subsequent signing of the Partial Test Ban Treaty was seen as a positive step, prompting the Bulletin to set the clock back to 12 minutes to midnight in 1963, reflecting the relief and diplomatic progress.
In 1991, with the end of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the first treaty to provide for deep cuts to the two countries' strategic nuclear weapons arsenals, prompting the Bulletin to set the clock hand to 17 minutes to midnight.
The clock was created in 1947 by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which was founded two years earlier by scientists Albert Einstein, J Robert Oppenheimer and Eugene Rabinowitch along with University of Chicago scholars. During that time, the clock was set at seven minutes to midnight.
Before January 2020, the two tied-for-lowest points for the Doomsday Clock were in 1953 (when the Clock was set to two minutes until midnight, after the U.S. and the Soviet Union began testing hydrogen bombs) and in 2018, following the failure of world leaders to address tensions relating to nuclear weapons and climate ...
In short: The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the symbolic Doomsday Clock to 89 seconds before midnight, the closest in its history, citing unchecked nuclear modernization, worsening climate inaction, and the rise of AI and disinformation.
It is now 89 seconds to midnight.
When the Doomsday Clock hits midnight, it symbolizes humanity reaching the point of "global catastrophe," meaning civilization as we know it ends due to self-inflicted threats like nuclear war, climate collapse, or disruptive technologies, though it's a metaphor, not a prediction, meant to spur action by showing we've crossed a critical threshold. It signifies a point of no return where the lights go out and we've essentially destroyed the world with our own dangerous tech, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
The clock was its farthest from midnight — a sizable 17 minutes — in 1991, with the end of the Cold War and the signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty between the U.S. and Soviet Union.
Clocks may have to skip a second — called a "negative leap second" — around 2029, a study in the journal Nature said Wednesday. "This is an unprecedented situation and a big deal," said study lead author Duncan Agnew, a geophysicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego.
The Doomsday Clock is set every year by the Bulletin's Science and Security Board in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes nine Nobel laureates.
The clock will continue to run down until it hits zero, at which time our carbon budget would be depleted and the likelihood of even more devastating global climate impacts would be very high.
How To Stop Worrying About The End Of The World
Quantum physics tells us that atoms absorb and emit light waves of specific colors, or frequencies. Light waves tuned to these atomic frequencies produce ticks of time that are billions of times more stable and precise than those of any other kind of clock.
He soberly notes, “it is probably rather remarkable that no more serious US–Soviet engagements ever took place.” The Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) is the closest the United States and the Soviet Union ever came to nuclear war.
“Nuclear clocks, when fully realized, can be unimaginably precise, more accurate than atomic clocks,” Derevianko said. Nuclear clocks work similarly to atomic clocks, Derevianko said, but they probe the nucleus rather than the atom itself.
Over the past 75 years, the hands of the clock have moved both backward and forward, according to whether steps were taken to address threats that could end human civilization on Earth, including climate change and nuclear war.
On April 13, 2029 (which happens to be Friday the 13th), something unsettling will happen. A decent-sized asteroid, the 1,100-foot-wide Apophis, will pass so close to Earth it'll be visible in the sky from certain places. Crucially, the giant rock will not strike our humble planet.
We don't feel it because everything spins together, a motion that has lasted for 4.5 billion years. NASA says there's almost no chance Earth will stop spinning in the next few billion years.
A 300m-wide asteroid will not hit the Earth in 2036, US astronomers say. It was thought there was a one-in-200,000 chance that it could strike on 13 April 2036, but revised calculations have now ruled this out. Instead, Nasa scientists said it would not get closer than 31,000km as it flies past on this date.
While the clock being close to midnight might make it seem that the world is headed toward a global catastrophe, this result isn't considered inevitable. The Doomsday Clock is not a typical clock because it can also move backward, so there is still time to change the countdown to midnight.
On July 14, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced their new and improved optical atomic clock is now the most accurate in the world.
The clock calculates the aging of blood and other tissues by tracking methylation, a natural process that chemically alters DNA over time. By comparing chronological age to the blood's biological age, the scientists used the clock to predict each person's life expectancy.
The Duc d'Orleans Breguet Symapthique Clock currently stands as the world's most expensive clock auctioned at $6.8 million (£5.2 million).
Until recently, the closest it had ever been set was at two minutes to midnight—first in 1953, when the U.S. and Soviet Union both tested thermonuclear weapons, and then in 2018, citing “a breakdown in the international order” of nuclear actors, as well as the continuing lack of action on climate change.
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists maintains a metaphorical clock, called The Doomsday Clock, but it doesn't tell time. The placement of the minute hand on the clock instead represents how close humanity is to self-inflicted destruction from unchecked advances in science and technology.