X-rays are produced farther out as the jet collides with surrounding gases, resulting in the creation of highly energetic particles.

[16] It is also one of the nearest large starburst galaxies, of which a galactic collision is suspected to be responsible for an intense burst of star formation.

[19][20] In 1847 John Herschel described the galaxy as "two semi-ovals of elliptically formed nebula appearing to be cut asunder and separated by a broad obscure band parallel to the larger axis of the nebula, in the midst of which a faint streak of light parallel to the sides of the cut appears.

"[21] In 1949 John Gatenby Bolton, Bruce Slee and Gordon Stanley localized NGC 5128 as one of the first extragalactic radio sources.

[26] Ten years later, young blue stars were found along the central dust band with the Hubble Space Telescope.

[37] It was later identified as a Type Ia supernova,[38] which forms when a white dwarf's mass grows large enough to ignite carbon fusion in its center, touching off a runaway thermonuclear reaction, as may happen when a white dwarf in a binary star system strips gas away from the other star.

[2][3][4][5][6][45] Classical Cepheids discovered in the heavily obscured dust lane of Centaurus A yield a distance between ~3–3.5 Mpc, depending on the nature of the extinction law adopted and other considerations.

[46] The distance to Centaurus A established from several indicators such as Mira variables and planetary nebulae favour a more distant value of ~3.8 Mpc.

[52] In July 2021 the Event Horizon Telescope released a resolved image of Centaurus A showing the jet coming from the black hole at its center.

Centaurus A is located approximately 4° north of Omega Centauri (a globular cluster visible with the naked eye).

[14] Because the galaxy has a high surface brightness and relatively large angular size, it is an ideal target for amateur astronomy observations.

The bright central bulge and dark dust lane are visible even in finderscopes and large binoculars,[14] and additional structure may be seen in larger telescopes.