  Kilo-Hertz (kHz) Quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) have been discovered in
the X-ray fluxes of 8 low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) with the Rossi X-ray
Timing Explorer (RXTE). The characteristics of these QPOs are remarkably
similar from one source to another. In particular, the highest observed QPO
frequencies for 6 of the 8 sources fall in a very narrow range: 1,066 to 1,171
Hz. This is the more remarkable when one considers that these sources are
thought to have very different luminosities and magnetic fields, and produce
very different count rates in the RXTE detectors. Therefore it is highly
unlikely that this near constancy of the highest observed frequencies is due to
some unknown selection effect or instrumental bias. In this letter we propose
that the highest observed QPO frequency can be taken as the orbital frequency
of the marginally stable orbit. This leads to the conclusions that the neutron
stars in these LMXBs are inside their marginally stable orbits and have masses
in the vicinity of 2.0 solar masses. This mass is consistent with the
hypothesis that these neutron stars were born with about 1.4 solar masses and
have been accreting matter at a fraction of the Eddington limit for 100 million
years.
