Doomsday Clock Time Edges Closest to Midnight in History

The Doomsday Clock hit another dreaded milestone, with scientists setting the clock just 85 seconds to midnight ... the closest we've ever been to annihilation.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists announced Tuesday the clock has now been placed at 85 seconds to midnight ... four seconds closer to the top of the clock than they set it last year.

Watch the video ... President Alexandra Bell of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists said at a news conference that nuclear weapons, climate change and disruptive technologies -- possibly referring to artificial intelligence -- have put the world closer to catastrophic failure than ever before. The clock is scientists' visual representation of how close the world is to potential global destruction.

As we noted, the clock was set at 89 seconds last year ... but it sat at 90 seconds in 2023 and 100 seconds in 2020. The clock was set farthest from midnight -- 17 minutes away -- months before the Soviet Union fell in 1991.