Reuters Science News Summary

Following is a summary of current science ​news briefs.

Isle of Wight fossil ​sheds light on enigmatic ‌meat-eating dinosaurs

The partial ​skull of a tiger-sized predator that prowled what is now the Isle of Wight off ‌England's southern coast about 120 million years ago is giving scientists a better understanding of an enigmatic group of meat-eating dinosaurs known for running down prey and ‌ripping them apart with massive hand claws. Researchers said the fossil belongs ‌to a species they have named Invictibellatrix amberina, an early member of the lineage of Cretaceous Period carnivorous dinosaurs called megaraptorans. Invictibellatrix adds to the knowledge of skull anatomy among early ⁠megaraptorans ​and, being the ⁠first one known from Europe, helps show how the group spread globally.

NASA's Perseverance rover ⁠breaks record for off-planet driving on Mars

While no person has ever set foot ​on Mars, humankind has managed to conduct extensive explorations of the surface ⁠of Earth's planetary neighbor using robotic rovers. One of them, NASA's six-wheeled Perseverance rover, has ⁠now ​set a record for the longest distance driven by any vehicle on a world beyond Earth. The US space agency has announced that the ⁠car-sized Perseverance has trekked 28.1 miles (45.2 km) since arriving on Mars roughly 5-1/2 years ⁠ago, passing ⁠the distance mark previously established by another NASA rover, Opportunity, from 2004 to 2018. Perseverance and Opportunity both also beat ‌the driving ‌distances of any rover that operated ​on the moon.