On Fri, 02 Mar 2007 21:24:18 GMT, in a place far, far away,
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate
that:

to slow it down?

No.

Or did it "crash" squarely enough into the atmosphere that it didn't
need to?

It needed to do a correction burn to ensure the proper angle at entry
interface, but not to slow it down. That's what the atmosphere is
for.