CENTAURUS-A, THE CORE OF THE PROBLEM

The bright, peculiar elliptical galaxy Centaurus A (NGC 5128, PKS 1322 -427) was one of the first extragalactic radio sources to be optically identified (Bolton et al. 1949). At a distance of 4 Mpc, Centaurus A is the closest active radio galaxy and affords the highest linear imag ing resolution (1 mas approximate to 0.02 pc) and hence the best prosp ects for studying an active nucleus close to the central radio source. We present the results of multi-epoch, 8.4-GHz, very long baseline in terferometry (VLBI), imaging observations of the nucleus made over the past three years. The nucleus possesses a core-jet structure where th e inner portion of the jet shows apparent linear motion with a velocit y substantially less than the speed of light.