  A powerful outburst of X-ray radiation from the supermassive black hole Sgr
A* at the center of the Milky Way is believed to be responsible for the
illumination of molecular clouds in the central ~100 pc of the Galaxy (Sunyaev
et al., 1993, Koyama et al., 1996). The reflected/reprocessed radiation comes
to us with a delay corresponding to the light propagation time that depends on
the 3D position of molecular clouds with respect to Sgr A*. We suggest a novel
way of determining the age of the outburst and positions of the clouds by
studying characteristic imprints left by the outburst in the spatial and time
variations of the reflected emission. We estimated the age of the outburst that
illuminates the Sgr A molecular complex to be ~110 yr. This estimate implies
that we see the gas located ~10 pc further away from us than Sgr A*. If the Sgr
B2 complex is also illuminated by the same outburst, then it is located ~130 pc
closer than our Galactic Center. The outburst was short (less than a few years)
and the total amount of emitted energy in X-rays is $\displaystyle \sim
10^{48}\rho_3^{-1}$ erg, where $\rho_3$ is the mean hydrogen density of the
cloud complex in units of $10^3 {\rm cm^{-3}}$. Energetically, such fluence can
be provided by a partial tidal disruption event or even by a capture of a
planet. Further progress in more accurate positioning and timing of the
outburst should be possible with future X-ray polarimetric observations and
long-term systematic observations with Chandra and XMM-Newton. A few
hundred-years long X-ray observations would provide a detailed 3D map of the
gas density distribution in the central $\sim 100$ pc region.
