The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic measure of how close humanity is to global catastrophe. Currently, its hands stand at an alarming 89 seconds to midnight for 2026, representing our nearest approach ever to disaster.
The next reading of the Doomsday Clock is set to be announced on January 27, 2026. While experts have already expressed alarm at what could possibly unfold next, the eerie phenomenon might actually turn out to be more deadly than ever imagined. Although it is symbolized as a clock, unfortunately, there is no chance of hitting snooze, as one might with an alarm clock. It keeps on ticking, and people are left scrambling to understand what dangers may lie ahead.
Tomorrow, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board will reveal the 2026 Doomsday Clock time.
The announcement will be livestreamed at this link and on the Bulletin’s YouTube channel: https://t.co/NlVAzjBf1t pic.twitter.com/ZxKwJiUpFT
— Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (@BulletinAtomic) January 26, 2026
In fact, as merely seconds remain for the hands of the clock to strike midnight, it would be unexplainable how, within a flash of time, the calamity would take place. Many believers have speculated that it could perhaps also vanish without a trace of humanity from the face of the world.
Going back to history, the Doomsday Clock was created by an artist named Martyl Langsdorf. It was a commissioned work for The Bulletin Of The Atomic Scientists Magazine back in 1947. The design was made in a way that the clock would warn the world about how catastrophic a nuclear war could be. Back then, the clock was set at seven minutes to midnight.
Over the years, aside from the multiple nuclear threats thrown across the world, the clock also began to reflect impending climate changes, bioweapons and even AI risks. In light of these developments, the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board meets annually to decide how close or farther the hands of the clock will be kept from midnight. In 2025, the Doomsday Clock was set at 89 seconds to midnight. A year before that, it was set at just 90 seconds away from midnight.
Fast forward to 2026, and the reading is more shocking than any of the previous years. While the Board has not formally announced the time, experts believe that the clock’s hands may move closer to midnight by a second more. Alicia Sanders-Zakre, the head of policy at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, sounded an extreme alarm on the matter.
Incoming doomsday clock reading… lets see if the scientist believe trump sped up the end of the world or if he pushed it further back…
My guess? …… we prolly lost a couple seconds😅
— Z (@MYBROKZ) January 26, 2026
In her words, “Our biggest concern is the existential threat posed by the more than 12,000 nuclear weapons in the world today. While the risk of nuclear use has been an existential threat for 80 years, it has increased in the last year, due to skyrocketing investments in nuclear arms, increasingly threatening nuclear rhetoric and actions and the increasing application of artificial intelligence in militaries.”
While the change is extremely small, it could end up reflecting a major catastrophic event ever recorded in modern history. Other scientific experts have cited repeated nuclear tensions, frequent climate crises and even AI militarization as some of the evident signs of danger lurking in the shadows.
There is a need for an immediate call to action, and there can even be unprecedented dangers that can arrive unannounced before time. With so many clear signs already, the mere news of Doomsday Clock’s finalization of time has sent the internet into a frenzy.
