Centaurus A

NGC 5128 · Dust, stars and an active nucleus

The route uses a rounded distance of 13 million light-years, following the NASA multiwavelength overview. Published educational sources give roughly 11–13 million light-years; this marker is an approximate distance from us.

The moving dashes represent light travelling between galaxies. Their speed and the spacing of the galaxy icons are illustrative.

≈ 60,000+ light-years across.

The bright stellar body spans over 60,000 light-years in NASA’s APOD description. The comparison uses 60,000 as a rounded reference; the faint stellar halo and radio lobes extend beyond it.

The overview compares this galaxy with a rounded Milky Way reference of 100,000 light-years on one linear scale. These luminous extents do not represent sharp physical edges.

An envelope split by dust

Dark dust obscures starlight across the center. Its warped geometry records a disturbed history, while a supermassive black hole powers jets. The model separates the stellar envelope, dust lane and outflow; their proportions are illustrative.

Select Dust or Jet to highlight obscuring material and the central outflow, or Core and Envelope for starlight. The model is schematic.

A nearby active galaxy

Centaurus A lies beyond the Local Group in the direction of Centaurus. Observations at different wavelengths reveal different components: visible starlight, infrared dust and high-energy jets.