The Doomsday Clock is a symbol, maintained by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1947, for how close humanity is to global catastrophe. As of 2026 it stands at 85 seconds to midnight, set on January 27, 2026. That is the closest it has ever been. The next announcement is expected in January 2027.
Midnight stands for irreversible catastrophe. The clock is not a literal countdown, not a prediction of a date, and it does not tick in real time. It is the judgment of the Bulletin's Science and Security Board, updated about once a year, usually in January.
The Science and Security Board sets the clock. Its members cover nuclear policy, climate, biosecurity, and disruptive technology, and the Bulletin's sponsors include Nobel laureates. Each year the board reviews the latest evidence, consults, and then decides whether to move the clock forward, move it backward, or leave it unchanged. The public announcement is the new setting, with a written statement of the reasons.
Who decides, and how the calculation is made, are covered in more detail here: who controls the Doomsday Clock and how the clock is calculated.
In 1947 the clock measured one threat: nuclear weapons. The Board later widened the assessment. Today it weighs nuclear arsenals and arms control, climate change, and disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence and biological risk. The point of one symbol is that a world lost to runaway warming is as lost as a world lost to nuclear war.
The clock has been reset many times since artist Martyl Langsdorf drew the first cover in 1947. The Bulletin itself was founded in 1945 by scientists who had worked on the Manhattan Project, including Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer, to warn the public about nuclear weapons.
The year-by-year list is on the Doomsday Clock timeline.
Yes. It has moved backward eight times. Each reversal followed a diplomatic gain, such as a test ban, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or the end of the Cold War. The farthest setting was 17 minutes in 1991. The clock has not moved backward since 2010, but the mechanism for a reversal is the same one that created the closer settings: a new judgment by the Board when the risks change.
It is not built to predict a specific event or to assign a percentage chance of war next year. It is a way to put several hard-to-compare risks into one picture that a non-specialist can read. Its authority comes from who sets it, not from a formula that outputs a time. A closer setting means the Board sees more danger. It does not mean catastrophe is scheduled.
A symbol, maintained by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1947, for how close humanity is to catastrophe. Midnight is that catastrophe. Scientists and security experts set it about once a year after reviewing nuclear, climate, and technology risks.
85 seconds to midnight, set on January 27, 2026. The next update is expected in January 2027. See the live clock and the 2026 announcement.
Midnight means global catastrophe in the Bulletin's metaphor. The clock has never reached it. It is a warning, and the Board has said human action can still move it back. What midnight stands for.
Who created the clock | Who controls it | Full timeline
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