Answer | You.com | Documentation

{
  "answer": "The aurora borealis is caused by charged particles ejected from the Sun—carried by the solar wind and often intensified by solar flares or coronal mass ejections—that travel to Earth, are funneled by Earth's magnetic field toward the polar regions, and collide with oxygen and nitrogen atoms in the upper atmosphere. These collisions excite the atoms, which then release photons of light, creating the visible northern lights. [[1, 2, 3]]",
  "sources": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/nmp/st5/SCIENCE/aurora.html",
      "title": "How Auroras Form",
      "snippets": [
        "Auroras are brilliant ribbons of light weaving across Earth's northern or southern polar regions. These natural light shows are caused by magnetic storms that have been triggered by solar activity, such as solar flares or coronal mass ejections."
      ],
      "citations": [
        "Auroras are brilliant ribbons of light weaving across Earth's northern or southern polar regions. These natural light shows are caused by magnetic storms that have been triggered by solar activity, such as solar flares (explosions on the Sun) or coronal mass ejections (ejected gas bubbles). Energetic charged particles from these events are carried from the Sun by the solar wind.",
        "When these particles seep through Earth's magnetosphere, they cause substorms. Then fast moving particles slam into our thin, high atmosphere, colliding with Earth's oxygen and nitrogen particles. As these air particles shed the energy they picked up from the collision, each atom starts to glow in a different color."
      ]
    },
    {
      "url": "https://www.valofinland.com/what-causes-the-colours-in-aurora-borealis/",
      "title": "What Causes the Colours in Aurora Borealis? - VALO Finland",
      "snippets": [
        "These collisions excite the gas particles, causing them to emit light. The phenomenon typically occurs in the polar regions because the Earth's magnetic field directs the solar wind particles towards the poles."
      ],
      "citations": [
        "The Aurora Borealis is a result of interactions between solar wind and the Earth's atmosphere. Solar wind is a stream of charged particles released from the sun's upper atmosphere, known as the corona. When these particles reach Earth, they collide with gases in our atmosphere, such as oxygen and nitrogen. These collisions excite the gas particles, causing them to emit light."
      ]
    },
    {
      "url": "https://triplefatgoose.com/blogs/down-time/understanding-the-aurora-borealis",
      "title": "The Aurora Borealis",
      "snippets": [
        "As gasses burn at millions of degrees within the sun, there are huge storms that emit charged particles—such as electrons—through space. Some of these particles fly directly from the sun to Earth."
      ],
      "citations": [
        "When electrons fly through space, two things can happen: they are reflected away by the Earth's magnetic field, or they follow it to the poles. Because the magnetic field is weaker at the poles, the electrons are able to freely enter the atmosphere without being reflected away."
      ]
    }
  ],
  "results": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/nmp/st5/SCIENCE/aurora.html",
      "title": "How Auroras Form",
      "snippets": [
        "Auroras are brilliant ribbons of light weaving across Earth's northern or southern polar regions. These natural light shows are caused by magnetic storms that have been triggered by solar activity."
      ]
    },
    {
      "url": "https://auroraqueenresort.fi/what-causes-the-northern-lights-to-appear/",
      "title": "What causes the northern lights to appear? - Aurora Queen Resort",
      "snippets": [
        "The northern lights, also known as aurora borealis, are a mesmerising natural light display that occurs when charged particles from the sun collide with gases in Earth's atmosphere."
      ]
    },
    {
      "url": "https://triplefatgoose.com/blogs/down-time/understanding-the-aurora-borealis",
      "title": "The Aurora Borealis",
      "snippets": [
        "When millions of photons of light are emitted at the same time, it causes the sky to light up and creates the Aurora Borealis."
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Returns a synthesized natural-language answer with citations and the web sources used to generate it. Provide a query and optional freshness, country, and language parameters. Unknown or extra request fields are rejected.

Authentication

X-API-Keystring

The unique API Key required to authorize API access. Learn how to get yours in the “Get your API key” section of the documentation.

The unique API Key required to authorize API access. Learn how to get yours in the ["Get your API key" section of the documentation](https://you.com/docs/quickstart#get-your-api-key).

Request

This endpoint expects an object.

querystringRequired

The question or prompt to answer.

freshnessenum or stringOptional

Specifies the freshness of the results to return. Provide either one of day, week, month, year, or a date range string in the format YYYY-MM-DDtoYYYY-MM-DD.

When your search query includes a temporal keyword and you also set a freshness parameter, the search will use the broader timeframe. For example, if you use query=news+this+week&freshness=month, the results will use a freshness of month.

Specifies the freshness of the results to return. Provide either one of `day`, `week`, `month`, `year`, or a date range string in the format `YYYY-MM-DDtoYYYY-MM-DD`. When your search query includes a temporal keyword and you also set a freshness parameter, the search will use the broader timeframe. For example, if you use `query=news+this+week&freshness=month`, the results will use a freshness of month.

countryenumOptional

The country code that determines the geographical focus of the web results.

languageenumOptionalDefaults to EN

The language of the web results that will be returned (BCP 47 format).

Response

A JSON object containing a synthesized answer with citations and supporting search results

answerstring

The synthesized response with inline citations. The answer is formatted in Markdown and includes numbered citations that reference the sources in the sources array.

sourceslist of objects

The web sources cited in the answer, ordered by source usage. May be empty if the answer didn't cite specific sources.

resultslist of objects

The top web search results considered during answer synthesis. Does not include the citations field.

Errors

401

Unauthorized Error

403

Forbidden Error

422

Unprocessable Entity Error

500

Internal Server Error

$	curl -X POST https://api.you.com/v1/answer \
>	-H "X-API-Key: <apiKey>" \
>	-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
>	-d '{
>	"query": "what causes the aurora borealis"
>	}'