Inside the room where NASA built a groundbreaking tool to spot alien worlds | CNN

During a visit to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory three years ago, I stepped into a blinding white room. There, I came face-to-face with a space instrument that could one day be used to search for evidence of life beyond Earth. Each person who enters the clean room at the Pasadena, California, facility must wear a white “bunny suit” that covers virtually everything but their eyes. The instrument, called a coronagraph, is so sensitive to contamination that I was given a list of things forbidden from entering the hallowed space — no makeup, lotion or scented products of any kind could be on my skin. The instrument team invited me to step inside the coronagraph virtually by equipping me with a pair of VR glasses to see all its components and how they ultimately fit together. This crucial sci-fi-like process is employed early on when assembling such a complex feat of engineering. Meeting people who had spent years developing the device — and hearing their hopes for what it could reveal to us — opened my eyes to the extreme dedication it takes to build a single space mission. Now, the coronagraph is ready to study the cosmos aboard the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, whi