The constellation also contains Omega Centauri, the brightest globular cluster as visible from Earth and the largest identified in the Milky Way, possibly a remnant of a dwarf galaxy.

Proxima, the tertiary star, is a red dwarf of magnitude 11.0; it appears almost 2 degrees away from the close pairing of Alpha and has a period of approximately one million years.

In July 2018 astronomers captured the first conclusive image of a protoplanetary disk containing a nascent exoplanet, named PDS 70b.

[2] Omega Centauri is classified as a Shapley class VIII cluster, which means that its center is loosely concentrated.

Omega Centauri was determined to be nonstellar in 1677 by the English astronomer Edmond Halley,[7] though it was visible as a star to the ancients.

[9] To the unaided eye, Omega Centauri appears fuzzy and is obviously non-circular; it is approximately half a degree in diameter, the same size as the full Moon.

The Blue Planetary was discovered by John Herschel and named for its color's similarity to Uranus, though the nebula is apparently three times larger than the planet.

[7] NGC 5253, a peculiar irregular galaxy, is located near the border with Hydra and M83, with which it likely had a close gravitational interaction 1–2 billion years ago.

It is visible with any amateur telescope, as well as binoculars under good conditions; it has been described as "shaped like a candle flame", being long and thin (16' by 3').

It has a supermassive black hole at its core, which expels massive jets of matter that emit radio waves due to synchrotron radiation.

NGC 5128 appears in the optical spectrum as a fairly large elliptical galaxy with a prominent dust lane.

Its overall magnitude is 7.0 and it has been seen under perfect conditions with the naked eye, making it one of the most distant objects visible to the unaided observer.

In small telescopes, the dust lane is not visible; it begins to appear with about 4 inches of aperture under good conditions.

In large amateur instruments, above about 12 inches in aperture, the dust lane's west-northwest to east-southeast direction is easily discerned.

[11] It likely originated as a spiral galaxy and underwent a catastrophic gravitational interaction with Centaurus A around 500 million years ago, stopping its rotation and destroying its structure.

The plane of the outer ring is distorted, which suggests that NGC 4650A is the result of a galaxy collision about a billion years ago.

This galaxy has also been cited in studies of dark matter, because the stars in the outer ring orbit too quickly for their collective mass.

The intracluster medium in the Centaurus Cluster has a high concentration of metals (elements heavier than helium) due to a large number of supernovae.

Large as it is now, in earlier times it was even larger, as the constellation Lupus was treated as an asterism within Centaurus, portrayed in illustrations as an unspecified animal either in the centaur's grasp or impaled on its spear.

[14] The Southern Cross, which is now regarded as a separate constellation, was treated by the ancients as a mere asterism formed of the stars composing the centaur's legs.

According to the Roman poet Ovid (Fasti v.379), the constellation honors the centaur Chiron, who was tutor to many of the earlier Greek heroes including Heracles (Hercules), Theseus, and Jason, the leader of the Argonauts.

[2] In Chinese astronomy, the stars of Centaurus are found in three areas: the Azure Dragon of the East (東方青龍, Dōng Fāng Qīng Lóng), the Vermillion Bird of the South (南方朱雀, Nán Fāng Zhū Què), and the Southern Asterisms (近南極星區, Jìnnánjíxīngōu).