What happens when the Doomsday clock reaches midnight? 100 seconds and how it works, explained 

On Tuesday, the Doomsday Clock was reportedly set to 90 seconds until midnight. According to scientists at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the organization which created the clock in 1947, this is the closest the clock has ever been to midnight.

As per CNN, the midnight in the symbolic clock represents the moment when the Earth will be “uninhabitable for humanity.” The clock was set at 100 seconds to midnight from 2020 to 2022.

The latest 90 seconds to midnight adjustment reportedly signals that the world is metaphorically the closest to a man-made catastrophe. The Bulletin said that the decision to move the clock from 100 second to 90 seconds is largely influenced by the Russia-Ukraine crisis and the increased risk of “nuclear escalation.”

In addition to the international conflict, consistent threats like climate change, disruptive technologies and biological threats also prompted the latest move. In a statement, The Bulletin said:

“The war's effects are not limited to an increase in nuclear danger; they also undermine global efforts to combat climate change.”

Speaking about the latest phenomenon, Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the Bulletin, said:

“We are living in a time of unprecedented danger, and the Doomsday Clock time reflects that reality.”

She mentioned that experts would not take the decision lightly and urged leaders to use their ability to turn back the clock:

“It’s a decision our experts do not take lightly. The US government, its NATO allies and Ukraine have a multitude of channels for dialogue; we urge leaders to explore all of them to their fullest ability to turn back the Clock.”

Bronson also shared that if the Doomsday Clock ever reaches midnight, it would mean that there has been “some sort of nuclear exchange or catastrophic climate change that’s wiped out humanity.”

She added that the clock has never reached midnight, and said she hopes humans never reach that point:

“We never really want to get there and we won’t know it when we do.”

The Doomsday clock was created in 1947 with the intention of warning humanity of the dangers of nuclear war. According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, it has not been designed to measure existential threats, but to spark conversations about concerning scientific topics such as climate change.

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Everything to know about the Doomsday Clock and its operations

The Doomsday Clock was created to warn humanity of the dangers of nuclear war (Image via Getty Images)

The Doomsday Clock is a symbolical or metaphorical clock that represents how close the Earth is to destruction caused by dangerous man-made technologies. The clock is set every year by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to warn the public and prompt action against such issues.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein and a group of atomic scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project and helped develop the first atomic weapons during World War II.

Although the scientists created the atomic bombs, they protested against its use. Two years later, they created the Doomsday clock to warn the world about the dangers of nuclear war.

The placement of the clock was based on the threat posed by nuclear weapons, which the Bulletin considered as the “greatest danger to humanity.”

According to the Bulletin, the symbolic clock represents “how close we are to destroying our civilization with dangerous technologies of our own making.” In 2017, the group also began including catastrophic damage caused by climate change in its decision to set the position of the clock.

On the clock, "midnight" is considered to be a representation of Armageddon or a catastrophic conflict that has the power to destroy the world and the human race. Every year, the clock hands are moved closer to or further away from midnight, depending on expert readings about existential threats at a particular time.

The hands are usually set up by the Bulletin and its security board, consisting of 13 Nobel Laureates, with midnight being marked as “the theoretical point of annihilation.” The Doomsday clock has ticked minutes or seconds towards or away from midnight over the years but has never hit the annihilation point.

While war and climate crisis brings the hands closer to midnight, treaties and cooperation push it further away from Doomsday.

Reports suggest that the clock was set to 17 minutes to midnight back in 1991, the farthest from the catastrophe after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

In 1953, it was set two minutes to midnight after the U.S. and Soviet Union both tested thermonuclear weapons. A similar time was set in 2018 due to an alleged “breakdown in the international order” in connection to nuclear actors and a lack of action on climate change.

In 2020, the clock was set at 100 seconds to midnight and in 2023 it moved 90 seconds to midnight, the closest ever to a catastrophe.