Ice in Arctic seas shrank this summer to the sixth lowest level in 36 years of monitoring.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center reported Monday that the ice reached its seasonal minimum on Sept. 17 of 1.94 million square miles. That's down a bit from 2013, but not near as low as the record-setting 2012. It is still 19 percent below average.

The Rockefellers, the first family of oil, said Monday they would divest from fossil fuels in a fresh boost for the fight against climate change ahead of a U.N. summit.

Britain also pledged new aid to tackle deforestation, a key contributor to climate change, a day after tens of thousands marched around the world to urge world leaders to do more to address the environmental crisis.

The largest gathering of world leaders on climate change opens at the United Nations on Tuesday amid calls for action to put the planet on course toward reversing global warming.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is hosting the summit of 120 leaders, the first high-level gathering since the Copenhagen conference on climate change ended in disarray in 2009.

SpaceX's unmanned Dragon spacecraft was nearing the International Space Station on Tuesday with a cargo of supplies, including freeze-dried meals, 20 live lab mice and a 3D printer.

Astronauts at the orbiting lab are scheduled to reach out with the space station's robotic arm to grasp the Dragon at 7:04 am (1104 GMT), NASA said.

Physicists in Switzerland said Sunday they had succeeded in teleporting the quantum state of a photon to a crystal, in which information transited from light to matter, over a record distance of 25 kilometers (15.5 miles).

The experiment, conducted over optical fiber at the University of Geneva, beat the team's previous record in 2003 of six kilometers.

NASA's Maven spacecraft arrived at Mars late Sunday after a 442 million-mile (711 million kilometer) journey that began nearly a year ago.

The robotic explorer fired its brakes and successfully slipped into orbit around the red planet, officials confirmed.

The 3-D printing boom is about to invade space.

NASA is sending a 3-D printer to the International Space Station in hopes that astronauts will be able to one day fix their spacecraft by cranking out spare parts on the spot.

Five years ago, the environment movement was in its heyday as politicians, actors, rock stars and protestors demanded a looming U.N. summit brake the juggernaut of climate change.

Then came crushing disappointment.

Thick clouds and rain over the Florida coast early Saturday forced the California-based SpaceX to postpone the launch of its Dragon cargo carrier to deliver food and supplies to the International Space Station.

Another attempt is planned for early Sunday at 1:52 am (0552 GMT) from Cape Canaveral, Florida, when the weather forecast is 40 percent favorable for launch.

The aerospace company Blue Origin has struck a deal to build a U.S.-made rocket engine that aims to eliminate reliance on Russian engines for American satellite launches.

Blue Origin owner Jeff Bezos, who founded Amazon.com and also owns the Washington Post, announced the deal to jointly fund a new BE-4 rocket engine with United Launch Alliance in the U.S. capital on Wednesday.