What is the ‘Doomsday Clock' and what happens when it hits midnight?

The keepers of the “Doomsday Clock” on Tuesday moved the symbolic countdown to 85 seconds till midnight and warned that the world has never been closer to destruction on the metaphorical timepiece.

But what is the “Doomsday Clock” and what happens when it hits midnight?

What is the Doomsday Clock?

The Doomsday Clock is a visual representation of how close the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists believes the world is to global catastrophe, focusing on the greatest threats to human survival.

It is “a design that warns the public about how close we are to destroying our world with dangerous technologies of our own making,” according to the group.

The Chicago-based Bulletin was founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein and Manhattan Project director J. Robert Oppenheimer, along with scientists and engineers who worked on developing the atomic bomb. It was meant to warn the public of the harm of their creation after the U.S. used the new weapons against Japan during WWII, with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing between 150,000 and 250,000 civilians, according to the Bulletin.

The metaphorical clock was created in 1947 when the Bulletin published its first magazine issue rather than a newsletter. Artist Martyl Langsdorf, the wife of a physicist who worked on the Manhattan project, was commissioned to design the magazine’s cover and sketched a clock “to suggest that we didn’t have much time left to get atomic weapons under control,” according to the Bulletin.

Langsdorf set the original Clock at seven minutes to midnight because, she said, “it looked good to my eye.”

What happens at midnight?

Midnight symbolizes the end of humanity and total catastrophe.

When did the Clock’s hand first move?

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

Since 2008, the decision on moving the hand has been the responsibility of the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board, which is made up of scientists in consultations with its board of sponsors, which includes 8 Nobel laureates.

When were the hands set closest and farthest to midnight?

The clock has been adjusted both forward and backward multiple times.

At the end of the Cold War, it was as far as 17 minutes to midnight. In the past few years, to address rapid global changes, the group has changed from counting down the minutes until midnight to counting down the seconds.

In 2026, the Clock moved closer than ever to midnight: 85 seconds to midnight.

“The dangerous trends in nuclear risk, climate change, disruptive technologies like AI, and biosecurity are accompanied by another frightening development: the rise of nationalistic autocracies in countries around the world,” Daniel Holz, chair of the organization’s science and security board, said in a press release. “Our greatest challenges require international trust and cooperation, and a world splintering into ‘us versus them’ will leave all of humanity more vulnerable.”

The group said the clock could be turned back if leaders and nations worked together to address existential risks.