Supernovae, TDEs, and Scintillation: How ASKAP and Rubin Are Mapping the Variable Universe

<p>In this episode, we dive into how astronomers are combining the power of the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory to capture the dynamic, ever-changing sky in real time. </p><p><br></p><p>Historically, optical and gravitational-wave observatories issued rapid alerts, but radio astronomy lacked automated, large-scale, real-time alert infrastructure. Now, a long-term monitoring program (project AS331) targets Rubin’s Deep Drilling Fields (DDFs), taking 3-hour radio snapshots approximately every 10 days to achieve a sensitivity of \\(\sim 60\ \mu\text{Jy}\\). This complementary survey automatically processes and streams radio data to the global astronomical community in near-real-time without human intervention.</p><p><br></p><p>Episode Highlights &amp; Key Discoveries:</p><ul><li>Bridging Optical and Radio Astronomy: How contemporaneous, non-coordinated radio surveys solve the bottleneck of follow-up observations for millions of optical alerts.</li><li>Tidal Disruption Events (TDEs): Updated high-cadence light curves for AT2018hyz, revealing late-time radio flaring and scintillation effects that constrain the outflow size.</li><li>Supernova Interaction: Modelling circumstellar material interactions around the Type IIb supernova SN2024abfo.</li><li>New Cosmic Discoveries: The detection of ASKAP J095711.5+051205 (a candidate optical-less TDE in a poststarburst galaxy) and ASKAP J005026.4-422958 (an ongoing Extreme Scattering Event caused by plasma lensing).</li></ul><p><br></p><p>### Article Reference</p><p> Title: ASKAP Monitoring of the Rubin Deep Drilling Fields</p><p> Authors: Dougal Dobie, James Freeburn, Iris de Ruiter, Katie Auchettl, James Coulson, Brent Miszalski, Anais Möller, and Nikhil Sarin</p><p> Identifier: arXiv:2610.13011v1</p><p><br></p><p>Acknowledements: Podcast prepared with Google/Gemini Notebook. Illustration credits: CSIRO</p>