Brown dwarfs fill the “gap” between stars and the much smaller planets—two very different types of astronomical objects. But how they originate has yet to be fully explained. Astronomers from Heidelberg University may now be able to answer that question. They discovered that the star ν Ophiuchi in the Milky Way is being orbited by two brown dwarfs, which in all probability formed along with the star from a gas and dust disk, just as planets do. The research results were published in Astronomy & Astrophysics.