Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer All Sky Monitor observations of SMC X-2 show that the source experienced an outburst in January to April 2000 reaching a peak luminosity of greater than \sim 10 ^ { 38 } ergs s ^ { -1 } .
RXTE Proportional Counter Array observations during this outburst reveal the presence of pulsations with a 2.37s period .
However , optical photometry of the optical counterpart showed the source to be still significantly fainter than it was more than half a year after the outburst in the 1970s when SMC X-2 was discovered .