Mary Bowerman

USA TODAY Network

The apocalypse may be near.

The Doomsday Clock may move closer to midnight on Thursday amid increasingly tense relations between world powers.

The clock, which stands as a symbolic countdown to the world’s end, has remained at three minutes until midnight for the past two years, marking the closest to midnight the clock has been since 1984 during the Cold War. Previous to that, the closest the clock got to midnight was two minutes to midnight in 1953, when the hydrogen bomb was first tested.

The scientists who determine how close the clock gets to midnight will livestream whether the Doomsday Clock will be adjusted at 10 a.m. ET on Thursday.

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The decision is made by the board of the nonprofit Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' along with input from a board of sponsors which includes 15 Nobel Laureates, according to the group.

Manhattan Project scientists, concerned about the first atomic weapons, founded the nonprofit Bulletin in 1945. They created the clock two years later, and update its minute hand each year.

This year, decisions that could affect the clock's position include President Donald Trump’s rhetoric on nuclear weapons and climate change, global security threats from technology and disregard for scientific evidence, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Follow Mary Bowerman on Twitter: @MaryBowerman

Contributing: Josh Hafner