The famous Doomsday Clock turns 75 this year, and it's possible its hands could move closer to midnight than ever before.
The symbolic clock, maintained by the non-profit organisation Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, measures what the Bulletin thinks is the likelihood of a "global catastrophe" - a cataclysmic event that could endanger human life on a worldwide scale.
The Bulletin will update the clock for 2022 at 2am AEDT tomorrow.
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What actually is the Doomsday Clock?
Besides being a catchy name, the Doomsday Clock is a concept established in 1947, by which a group of scientists and analysts can express the risk of a potentially world-ending disaster.
Midnight represents the moment of that disaster.
The symbolic timepiece also serves as a call to action for humanity as a whole to attempt to "turn back the clock" and retreat from a headlong rush into the apocalypse.
It was established by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a non-profit organisation of scientists and researchers itself founded in 1945 by, among others, Albert Einstein.
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How do they measure the likelihood of disaster?
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists members who are involved analyse risks posed in three key areas - nuclear weapons, climate change, and disruptive technologies in other fields.
Nuclear technology was obviously much on the minds of scientists in 1947, but in later years climate change, and more recently still the global response to the COVID-19 outbreak, have emerged as crucial factors.
Where are the hands at the moment?
Since 2020, the hands have sat at 100 seconds to midnight - just over a minute and a half away.
And yes, that is the closest we've come to the proverbial stroke of midnight.
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Why are we so close now?
In last year's Doomsday Clock statement, the Bulletin declared the COVID-19 pandemic a "wake-up call", pointing to laggard and lacking responses from world leaders that allowed the disease to spread.
"The pandemic revealed just how unprepared and unwilling countries and the international system are to handle global emergencies properly," the statement read.
"In this time of genuine crisis, governments too often abdicated responsibility, ignored scientific advice, did not cooperate or communicate effectively, and consequently failed to protect the health and welfare of their citizens."
The Bulletin said while COVID-19 itself had been devastating, it did not represent an "existential threat" to humanity, but what it revealed of world leadership might do.
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"The pandemic serves as a historic wake-up call, a vivid illustration that national governments and international organisations are unprepared to manage nuclear weapons and climate change, which currently pose existential threats to humanity, or the other dangers—including more virulent pandemics and next-generation warfare—that could threaten civilisation in the near future," the statement read.
A global acceleration of misinformation - also highlighted by COVID-19 - was also pointed to.
"This wanton disregard for science and the large-scale embrace of conspiratorial nonsense - often driven by political figures and partisan media - undermined the ability of responsible national and global leaders to protect the security of their citizens," the Bulletin said.
"False conspiracy theories about a 'stolen' presidential election led to rioting that resulted in the death of five people and the first hostile occupation of the US Capitol since 1814.
"In 2020, online lying literally killed."
How do we turn back the clock?
The Bulletin proposed a number of measures to curb the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and fight back against the threat of climate change.
It called for the US and Russia to work together to limit the production of nuclear weapons and delivery systems, as well as for the US and Iran to return to the Joint Comprehensive Action Plan.
Banks were called on to limit investment in fossil fuel projects, as was China for its Belt and Road initiative.
Tomorrow's statement will no doubt illustrate how much progress the Bulletin believes has been made.
When was the last time the hands moved away from midnight?
That would be in 2010, when the clock moved back to six minutes from midnight, after reaching five minutes to midnight in 2007.
The Bulletin noted that year that the world was "poised to bend the arc of history toward a world free of nuclear weapons".
"For the first time since atomic bombs were dropped in 1945, leaders of nuclear weapons states are cooperating to vastly reduce their arsenals and secure all nuclear bomb-making material," the 2010 statement read.
"And for the first time ever, industrialised and developing countries alike are pledging to limit climate-changing gas emissions that could render our planet nearly uninhabitable."
It came after then-US President Barack Obama and then-Russian President Dmitri Medvedev embarked on a partnership to limit their nuclear proliferation in 2009, while the US and China agreed to reduce carbon emissions at a Copenhagen summit.
Since its founding in 1947, the clock has been moved forward 16 times, and back just eight. Its initial position was seven minutes to midnight.
When was it furthest from midnight?
In 1991, when it was moved to 17 minutes away - 11.43pm, as it were.
Since the clock was originally conceived as having a 15-minute range - ie, from 11.45pm-12am - this was quite a statement.
The previous year and more had seen the Cold War dramatically de-escalate, with the Berlin Wall being brought down in 1989, and the US and Russia both scaling down their nuclear activities.
The Bulletin said it felt as though the world was entering a "new era".
"The Cold War is over," they declared in that year's statement.
Say I'm up at 2am (AEDT) - can I watch what happens?
You can indeed. The Bulletin's website will live stream the event, as will their Facebook page.
