A pion is created in the higher reaches of Earth's atmosphere when an incoming high-energy cosmic-ray particle collides with an atomic nucleus. A pion so formed descends toward Earth with a speed of 0.99c. In a reference frame in which they are at rest, pions decay with an average life of 26 ns. As measured in a frame fixed with respect to Earth, how far (on the average) will such a pion move through the atmosphere before it decays?