Expansion & Contraction Noise?

I have a gas Whirlpool Super Capacity 465 oven/stove that came with the house I just bought.

It is making a cracking sound after being in use or not that I equate to the sound of a glass coffee pot heating on a coffee maker heating plating and the cracking it makes.

It is not the sound of electic ignitors. It sounds more like expansion and contraction and seems to be coming from the lower back. However, like I said this happens in the dead of night when the stove is not used. Its rather loud and annoying. Its also intermittent - it might start up and going for 20 minutes then stops for 2 minutes or 2 hours and start up for 10 mintues then stop for a bit, etc, etc.

It seems to know when I’m coming as when I go to zero in on the sound, it of course won’t make it until I walk away and get back in bed.

It seems to predominantly do this overnight rather that during the day. I thought it was perhaps expansion and contraction as evening temperatures drop but frankly its indoors on an inside wall where my thermostat might go from 70 to 65 overnight and that just doesn’t seem like a reasonable explanation.

If anyone can offer insight, I’d appreciate it, the noise is annoying and driving me nuts when its so intermittent. It goes like nuts when I’m in bed but stops when I try to zero in. Its loud enough to hear clear across the house. Like I said it sounds like expansion/contraction with the click, clack, bang, etc every few seconds lasting for a half hour - but in the dead of night when not in use nor used all day I don’t get why it would do this.