  Most galactic nuclei are now believed to harbour supermassive black holes.
Studies of stellar motions in the central few light-years of our Milky Way
Galaxy indicate the presence of a dark object with a mass of about 2.6 million
solar masses. This object is spatially coincident with Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*),
the unique compact radio source located at the dynamical centre of our Galaxy.
By analogy with distant quasars and nearby active galactic nuclei (AGN), Sgr A*
is thought to be powered by the gravitational potential energy released by
matter as it accretes onto a supermassive black hole. However, Sgr A* is much
fainter than expected in all wavebands, especially in X-rays, casting some
doubt on this model. Recently, we reported the first strong evidence of X-ray
emission from Sgr A*. Here we report the discovery of rapid X-ray flaring from
the direction of Sgr A*. These data provide compelling evidence that the X-ray
emission is coming from accretion onto a supermassive black hole at the
Galactic Centre, and the nature of the variations provides strong constraints
on the astrophysical processes near the event horizon of the black hole.
