The photograph above, which was taken from a spacecraft called Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter during Phoenix's descent, shows how it first deployed a parachute to slow itself.
During the rocket firing, to slow itself into orbit, Cassini made what will be its closest approach to Saturn, passing within 12,800 miles of the planet's cloud tops.
It fired its thrusters for 57 seconds, slowing itself just enough (about 30 feet a second) to be gently pulled, as planned, into the asteroid's field of gravity.
In fact, the number of warnings was such that the plane's computers could not initially make an accurate calculation of whether the jet — still laden with fuel and 50 tons over its maximum landing weight — would be able to slow itself enough on landing to avoid overshooting the end of the runway.
Two benchmark examples of classical music video, Henri-Georges Clouzot's film of Karajan leading the Verdi Requiem (1967, Deutsche Grammophon) and Bruno Monsaingeon's "Glenn Gould: The Alchemist" (1974, EMI), show how the camera can slow itself to a thoughtful, contemplative gaze that actually takes in what's happening.
And when you bring it down it will, for the most part, slow itself down.
As for its long tail, the dino probably used it to slow itself down when descending, thus avoiding crash landings.
In a nominal descent, after the parachute and heat shield were jettisoned away from the lander, Schiaparelli would have fired its thrusters to slow itself to around 4 km/hour.
Thing One: Slowdown Fever: When perpetually anemic Japan is the only major economy in the world not actively trying to slow itself down, then the world's economy has a problem.
