This weekend, the mountain-size space rock will peak in brightness in a rare once-in-a-decade event that you can observe from home with basic stargazing binoculars — or in a free livestream. Named (887) Alinda, the near-Earth asteroid measures an estimated 2.6 miles (4.2 kilometers) wide — roughly the width of Manhattan — according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. On Wednesday (Jan. 8), the chunky space rock made its closest approach to Earth in decades, swooping to within 7.6 million miles (12.3 million km) of our planet, or about 32 times the average distance between Earth and the moon. Alinda isn't...