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Description
While planets between the size of Uranus and Saturn are absent within the solar system, the star K2-24 hosts two such planets, K2-24b and c, with radii equal to 5.4 R_{Earth}_ and 7.5 R_{Earth}_, respectively. The two planets have orbital periods of 20.9 days and 42.4 days, residing only 1% outside the nominal 2:1 mean-motion resonance. In this work, we present results from a coordinated observing campaign to measure planet masses and eccentricities that combines radial velocity measurements from Keck/HIRES and transit-timing measurements from K2 and Spitzer. K2-24b and c have low, but nonzero, eccentricities of e_1_~e_2_~0.08. The low observed eccentricities provide clues to the formation and dynamical evolution of K2-24b and K2-24c, suggesting that they could be the result of stochastic gravitational interactions with a turbulent protoplanetary disk, among other mechanisms. K2-24b and c are 19.0_-2.1_^+2.2^ M_{Earth}_ and 15.4_-1.8_^+1.9^ M_{Earth}_, respectively; K2-24c is 20% less massive than K2-24b, despite being 40% larger. Their large sizes and low masses imply large envelope fractions, which we estimate at 26_-3_^+3^ % and 52_-3_^+5^ %. In particular, K2-24c's large envelope presents an intriguing challenge to the standard model of core-nucleated accretion that predicts the onset of runaway accretion when f_env_~50%.
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