A new and detailed view of a distant stellar nursery reveals a potpourri of cosmic wonders, including hundreds of baby brown dwarf stars, some odd planet-like objects barely more massive than Jupiter and a cloud of gas and dust that reflects light, and also emits its own.

The image, produced by Japan's Subaru Telescope, was taken in the infrared spectrum of light and shows a star-forming region called S106, some 2,000 light-years from Earth. It was released Feb. 14.

The massive young star at the center of the image is approximately 100,000 years old, researchers said, and it is about 20 times as massive as our Sun. The star, called IRS4 (Infrared Source 4), shoots gas and dust outward, resulting in the hourglass shape.

This shape, known as a nebula, has two parts. Ultraviolet rays from the star excite hydrogen gas in the nebula. As this gas relaxes, it emits the blue glow seen in the inner regions. Scientists call this an emission nebula, because it emits its own light. The red region towards the edge of the nebula is a reflection nebula, made as surrounding dust particles directly reflect the light emitted from the star.

The image also reveals hundreds of faint young objects around the massive central star and throughout the surrounding nebula. The mass of each of these objects is less than 0.08 times that of our Sun -- too small to sustain the burning of hydrogen gas that causes a normal star to shine. They are considered to be young brown dwarfs.

The lightest and faintest objects discovered in the new image have an estimated mass of only a few times that of Jupiter. Researchers have been discovering more and more small objects recently that are difficult to categorize. Some scientists have thought similar objects might be free-floating planets -- objects that are similar to planets but don't orbit around a star. Other researchers say more studies need to be done to figure out what these objects are.

The Subaru Telescope is operated by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan.