90 seconds separate the world from the end. The Council of Atomic Scientists announces the update of the "Doomsday Clock"

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Council on Science and Security announced Tuesday evening that it will move the hands of its "Doomsday Clock" - designed to predict how close humanity is to apocalyptic annihilation - to 90 seconds to midnight.

"We move the clock forward, the closest it has ever been to midnight. It is now, 90 seconds to midnight."

#DoomsdayClock https://t.co/vNLOCAAx5E pic.twitter.com/Wg4l8fZUU0

— Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (@BulletinAtomic) January 24, 2023

This is the closest time to midnight on this watch since it was first revealed in 1947, and this is the 25th move of the clock hands back and forth over the course of 76 years.

The "Doomsday Clock" is a symbolic clock established in 1945 by scientists, some of whom participated in the nuclear bomb-making program, as part of the "Bulletin of Atomic Scientists" plan, which, in addition to the clock, includes other scientific services.

Scientists make a decision whether or not to move the clock, based on indications of an improvement in the world's situation in the face of nuclear and climatic dangers.

The scientists of the publication said - during a live broadcast on the website - that they took into account the new changes that occurred in the world, such as the Russian-Ukrainian war, biological threats, the spread of nuclear weapons, and the ongoing climate crisis.

On January 21, 2022, the Council fixed the clock at only 100 seconds before the "zero hour", which is 12 midnight.

IT IS 100 SECONDS TO MIDNIGHT

Read the 2022 #DoomsdayClock statement: https://t.co/eiMjD586FF pic.twitter.com/LuBWlAifs7

— Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (@BulletinAtomic) January 20, 2022

In 1945, scientists at the University of Chicago who worked on the Manhattan Project started a newsletter called the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and two years later this group met to discuss the looming threat of nuclear war.

The "doomsday clock" was first unveiled at the start of the Cold War in 1947 by the Science and Security Council of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

The council - which includes 11 Nobel Prize-winning scientists and is based in Chicago, USA - set the first doomsday clock at 7 minutes before midnight, to determine how close the world is to nuclear annihilation.

And just 4 months after the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the first issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was published, which two years later turned from a print newsletter into a magazine, and landscape artist Martel Langsdorf designed the first doomsday clock for the cover of the new magazine.

In 1949, the editor of the Bulletin moved the clock from 7 to 3 minutes to midnight, after the Soviet Union tested its first nuclear weapons.

In 1953, the clock moved to two minutes before midnight, after the United States and the Soviet Union detonated the first thermonuclear weapons, the closest time to midnight on this watch in the twentieth century.

Recently, the clock has been updated to include additional threats beyond just nuclear power, such as climate change, as well as others that are pushing us ever closer to extinction.

Since then, members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Science and Security Council have annually adjusted the time to reflect on whether the events of the previous year brought humanity closer or further from destruction, drawing on a database of more than 100 predictions to assess the risk.