Axios

The night sky is getting dramatically brighter due to light pollution spreading across the globe — and it poses an existential crisis for our ability to study space.

Why it matters: Information about distant galaxies and star systems gathered through telescopes and other tools is vital for humanity's understanding of our place in the universe.

In an annual update announced Tuesday morning, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set the symbolic Doomsday Clock to 90 seconds to midnight.

Why it matters: The setting moves the clock's hands closer to midnight than it has ever been before.