[1] Iota Centauri has an apparent visual magnitude of +2.73,[2] making it easily visible to the naked eye.

[11] Consequently, the Chinese name for ι Centauri itself is 柱十一 (Zhǔ shíyī, English: the Eleventh Star of Pillars.

)[12] The spectrum of ι Centauri matches a stellar classification of A2 V. It is an A-type main sequence star that is generating energy by the nuclear fusion of hydrogen in its core region.

The dust is unusually luminous for a star this age, suggesting that some process may have recently increased the amount of debris, such as collisions between planetesimals.

This is a group of around 16 co-moving stars that most likely originated in the same molecular cloud at least 45 million years ago.