The end of the 20th century was marked by some of the most fascinating astronomical discoveries of all times - the definite detection of extrasolar planets (or exoplanets) orbiting nearby stars and unambiguous observation of brown dwarves - enigmatic objects with too low a mass to be called stars and too much mass to be called planets. The existence of brown dwarves was inferred theoretically nearly 50 years ago, but only in 1995 came the first successful observational detection. By now, several hundred such objects are known in the Milky Way, representing strange worlds that differ very much from what we are accustomed to live in, yet they may have planets of their own and present welcome environments for extraterrestrial life. I will talk about the origin of brown dwarves - an important mystery that may determine how a broad range of objects, from massive stars to planets, are formed in the Universe.