In 2011, astronomers reported our galaxy is likely filled with roaming planets not attached to a host star, and these worlds may in fact outnumber stars in the Milky Way.

Scientists have debated over whether these objects are true planets, or light stars known as brown dwarfs. Brown dwarfs form just like stars but don't have the mass to spark nuclear fusion at their cores.

In a new study published by The Astrophysical Journal, scientists identified one of these objects that may give answers to where these roaming objects came from.

A loud boom heard Monday morning in Ocean City was likely caused by military jets that frequently fly over the area, according to Jessica Waters, a spokeswoman for the town.

The boom was heard around 11:40 a.m., she said.

Jets out of Navy bases in Norfolk and Patuxent River in Southern Maryland often fly over the beach resort from time to time and can caused disturbances for Delmarva residents.

"We certainly do experience it from time to time," Waters said.

A strange noise was heard in a Nottinghamshire village in the early hours of Thursday morning.

Post reader Danielle Metcalf reported that she heard a loud noise and witnessed a bright light in the night sky in Burton Joyce - but what could it have been?

The noise was heard around 1:15am and startled Danielle, who told the Post: "It was an extremely loud noise, and one that I've not heard before." She added: "It didn't sound like a police helicopter and it didn't seem to move for ages. "It was really low and had a light which just shone and didn't really move. I would have expected to see it move into the distance. It seemed to just disappear to nowhere eventually. "To be honest, I was quite scared."

Michelle Pavey added that she heard the noise in Ruddington: "Initially it appeared as if it had travelled from across the Clifton area. I assumed it was the police but it was very dark so could not be sure."

Nottinghamshire Police were contacted by one of Ms Metcalf's friends, who also heard the noise, but reported that there were no records of helicopters in the area at that time. The Post has also contacted police, who said they are investigating the reports.

Glen MacPherson first heard the Hum in 2012. He was in Sechelt when he detected a low-level drone that he thought was coming from nearby float planes. Over time, he started to realize the Hum had nothing to do with planes and tried to figure out what exactly was going on. So, he did what most people do when they have an unanswered question: he Googled it.

He found out he wasn't alone. MacPherson discovered an online community of people who say they have been hearing a mysterious drone that has been dubbed The World Hum.

"Much to my surprise, it turns out I was one of the people who can sense what seems to be a very unusual low-frequency sound," he said.

Four years later, when curious people like MacPherson Google information about the Hum, they come across his website, The World Hum Map and Database.

MacPherson, a schoolteacher in Gibsons who has also worked as an instructor at the University of British Columbia, says he wanted to apply a measure of scientific rigour to this unexplained phenomenon, so he created the database to track reports from people around the world who say they too hear the Hum.

MacPherson has heard from thousands of people from locations as far as Iceland, New Zealand, Kazakhstan and the Philippines. The data, he admits, is skewed since the site only reaches English speakers. He plans to the translate the site into Chinese, which means he could get a flood of new data from the world's most populous country. He says if you look at the data he has accumulated, a few things stand out.

"I caution anybody who looks at the Hum Map to not be distracted by the high concentration of points on the Eastern Seaboard of the US and, in particular, over in England. Over in England, it would appear that they're being absolutely clobbered," MacPherson said.

He also notes that Vancouver Island has a "significantly higher concentration of Hum reports."

Using satellite data on how water moves around Earth, NASA scientists have solved two mysteries about wobbles in the planet's rotation -- one new and one more than a century old. The research may help improve our knowledge of past and future climate.

Although a desktop globe always spins smoothly around the axis running through its north and south poles, a real planet wobbles. Earth's spin axis drifts slowly around the poles; the farthest away it has wobbled since observations began is 37 feet (12 meters). These wobbles don't affect our daily life, but they must be taken into account to get accurate results from GPS, Earth-observing satellites and observatories on the ground.

In a paper published today in Science Advances, Surendra Adhikari and Erik Ivins of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, researched how the movement of water around the world contributes to Earth's rotational wobbles. Earlier studies have pinpointed many connections between processes on Earth's surface or interior and our planet's wandering ways. For example, Earth's mantle is still readjusting to the loss of ice on North America after the last ice age, and the reduced mass beneath that continent pulls the spin axis toward Canada at the rate of a few inches each year. But some motions are still puzzling.

Over the past week SalfordOnline.com has been contacted by numerous readers being woken in the early hours of the morning by unusual mechanical sounds.

There's loud, grating clanks lasting for a couple of seconds at a time but repeated every 15-20 minutes. Then there's the sound of gas under pressure - possibly being released. The earliest they've been heard is around 2am, and the latest at around 4am, in Weaste, Seedley and areas around Salford Royal hospital, but also as far away as Swinton and MediaCityUK.

Salford City Council said their Environment team had received multiple complaints in the last seven days about early morning noise, but that inspectors had not been able to trace what was causing such sounds.

Video capturing the middle-of-the-night noises has been posted in the SalfordOnline.com Facebook group here and here.
On 29 March Paul Boon wrote: "It's 3:39am is anyone hearing a really loud, noise from the Eccles area about every two minutes which is eerily mechanical in nature?" It's driving some to absolute distraction.

But the source of the noise has been impossible to pin down. "Every time we heard the noise you could feel the vibrations through the house," said one Grange Street resident. This audio - most audible towards the end of the clip - captures the strange sound.

A series of what people described as loud explosions were heard in Agawam and Suffield, Connecticut on Saturday and Sunday night.

Residents and police reported that they heard a couple of loud noises on Saturday night. Then on Sunday there were three or four more. It was loud enough to shake some houses and scare resident's pets.

22News spoke with the Agawam Police Department and the Fire Department who said they were sent out to look into what the cause was but never found anything.

Most reports came from Barre, South Westfield, and Northwest Field Streets. Suffield police also received reports but couldn't locate the source.

Multiple people reported hearing a loud boom early Wednesday morning in the northern area of Buncombe County.
News 13 received messages from people hearing the noise in Woodfin, Weaverville, Alexander, Leicester and Reynolds. We contacted Buncombe County EOC, the sheriff's office and Weaverville police. All said they had received multiple calls as well, but no cause has been found. An officer with the Weaverville Police Department said because authorities could not find a cause, it suggests the sound was from some sort of seismic activity.

The U.S. Geological Survey has not reported any earthquakes on its website at this time.

Mississippi Emergency Management Agency spokesman Greg Flynn said he heard two booms about 8 a.m. as he walked into the office.

"It was loud enough that it made me turn my head," Flynn said. "I thought it was coming from the (Mississippi) Fire Academy, but there was nothing going on there."

A caller in Jackson said he heard the boom, which he thought was coming from Pearl, as far away as downtown Jackson.

Another caller said the lights went out briefly between Pearl and Brandon after he heard the boom.

Entergy spokeswoman Mara Hartmann said there was a 3-4 minute transmission-related outage Thursday morning near Old Fannin Road in Flowood that affected industrial customers, but no residential customers. She said that the cause is under investigation.

Booms heard on Sunday evening prompted at least two calls to York County 911, but what caused the noise remains a mystery.

The calls came from the southwestern part of the county, York County spokesman Carl Lindquist said. Staff at the 911 center made some calls but were unable to confirm any cause.

Jeri Jones, owner of Jones Geological Services, said he heard two booms at his home in North Codorus Township. The first one around 7:43 p.m. was louder than the second one around 7:52 p.m. It didn't seem like a seismic event.

And it wasn't an earthquake, Dr. Charles Scharnberger, professor emeritus of the earth sciences department at Millersville University. Nothing showed on the seismograph.

AccuWeather.com meteorologist Randy Adkins checked the weather records, and there wasn't any lightning Sunday evening. Perhaps it was something flying though the air faster than the speed of sound, such as an aircraft or a meteorite coming through the atmosphere, he said.

State police responded to a report about a possible explosion, but a trooper was not able to locate the source, said Trooper Robert Hicks, a state police spokesman.