Doomsday Clock announcement reveals how close we actually are to end of the world

The eagerly-anticipated update to the Doomsday Clock has finally been announced.

The world's been counting down the days until The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists shared the latest news on what the clock - which is designed to show just how close humanity is to global catastrophe caused by man-made technologies - is currently set to for 2025.

While the Doomsday Clock is not an actual clock, the metaphorical device should by no means be taken lightly as it's used to warn the public about our proximity to self-destruction namely through the use of nuclear weapons, having first started running in 1947 after being created by J. Robert Oppenheimer, Albert Einstein and Eugene Rabinowitch.

The Doomsday Clock's unveiling in 2023 (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Today's update (28 January) sees the Doomsday Clock currently moved forward to 89 seconds to midnight - the closest the world has ever been to midnight.

"In setting the Clock one second closer to midnight, we send a stark signal: Because the world is already perilously close to the precipice, a move of even a single second should be taken as an indication of extreme danger and an unmistakable warning that every second of delay in reversing course increases the probability of global disaster," The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists warn.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists further explained that today's Clock setting will have considered 'multiple global threats' including 'the proliferation of nuclear weapons, disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence, the Russia-Ukraine war, Israel-Hamas war, Israel-Hezbollah conflict, bio-threats and the continued climate crisis'.

In order to work out the update, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists asks if humanity is safer or at greater risk this year compared to last year and if humanity is at a greater risk than in the past seven decades.

If they believe the answer is yes then the clock has to move.

This year's Clock setting has considered 'disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence' (Andriy Onufriyenko / Getty Images)

Ahead of today's update, the last two years saw the hands of the clock remaining at 90 seconds to midnight - the most dangerous position since it was first created.

Prior to 2023, however, the clock had stood at 100 seconds to midnight, which was closer to destruction than at any point since it was created 78 years ago.

The Doomsday Clock was the furthest it has ever been from midnight over three decades ago back in 1991.

In that year it was set at 17 minutes to midnight after the Cold War came to an end, which saw the US and the Soviet Union sign the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty - the first treaty to provide for deep cuts to the two countries’ strategic nuclear weapons arsenals - followed by the dissolution of the USSR.