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In Coleridge’s famous poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” the mariner shoots an albatross that had been following his sailing ship. Then bad things start to happen. His ship is becalmed in the Pacific near the equator, a region once known by sailors as the “doldrums” because of its weak and variable winds. The crew begin to run short of drinking water, leading to the famous line “Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink”—a phrase that almost defines irony. Big oceans like the Pacific are likely to occur on many extrasolar planets, but these worlds will also have