Reuters Science News Summary

Following is a summary of current science news briefs. India says space debris from anti-satellite test to 'vanish' in 45 days

India expects space debris from its anti-satellite weapons launch to burn out in less than 45 days, its top defense scientist said on Thursday, seeking to allay global concern about fragments hitting objects. The comments came a day after India said it used an indigenously developed ballistic missile interceptor to destroy one of its own satellites at a height of 300 km (186 miles), in a test aimed at boosting its defenses in space. Trump administration calls for putting Americans back on moon by 2024

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence announced on Tuesday an accelerated goal of putting Americans back on the moon within five years "by any means necessary," and NASA's top official immediately embraced the challenge. Pence, chairing a meeting of the National Space Council at NASA's Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, borrowed from the vocabulary of the Cold War era in declaring, "We're in a space race today, just as we were in the 1960s." Second Chinese rocket startup fails to put satellite into orbit: state media

A rocket developed by OneSpace failed to reach orbit after lifting off from a state launch facility in northwestern China, state media reported on Thursday, the second failed orbital launch by a privately funded Chinese firm in five months. An anomaly occurred within "tens of seconds" after OneSpace's OS-M1 rocket blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre on Wednesday, the official Technology Daily reported, declaring that the launch had failed. Little sun bear's facial mimicry reveals complex social skills

Sun bears, the smallest of the world's eight bear species, are generally solitary animals, content to spend most of their time alone outside mating season, foraging for fruit, rodents, birds and insects in Southeast Asian tropical forests. But, scientists said on Thursday, they also possess an unexpected social skill that puts them in elite company alongside humans and some of our close evolutionary cousins: the ability to mimic another bear's facial expressions in a subtle type of communication.