‘Doomsday Clock’ 2026: This is how close we are to self-annihilation, scientists say

(WASHINGTON) — The “Doomsday Clock” — a symbolic clock that represents how close humanity is to global catastrophe — has moved closer to midnight.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced Tuesday that the clock is now 85 seconds to midnight, with midnight representing the apocalypse.

The organization cited nuclear weapons, climate change and biological threats as the three biggest concerns to humanity and the motivation to move the clock closer to midnight.

The new time is four seconds closer to midnight than the 2025 Doomsday Clock.

The clock, set by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a nonprofit media organization comprised of world leaders and Nobel laureates.

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.

Intended to be a metaphor and graphic reminder of the perils humans must address, the Doomsday Clock was established in 1947 by Albert Einstein, Manhattan Project director J. Robert Oppenheimer and University of Chicago scientists who helped develop the first atomic weapons as part of the Manhattan Project.

When it was introduced — two years after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan — it was set to seven minutes before midnight.

Since then, the clock has been adjusted both forward and backward multiple times.

The farthest the clock has been adjusted from midnight was at 17 minutes in 1991, after then-President George H.W. Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev announced reductions in the nuclear arsenals of their respective countries and the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty was revived.

In 2025, the clock moved to 89 seconds before midnight. The 2024 and 2023 Doomsday Clock was set to 90 seconds before midnight.

ABC News’ Bill Hutchinson contributed to this report.