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The image on the left is of Earth and the moon set against the vastness of space. The picture was snapped by NASA’s Messenger probe at a distance of 114 million miles (183 million km) and evokes memories of the Voyager 1 image of Earth taken from 3.7 billion miles away in 1990.

The image was taken during NASA’s search for Vulcanoids using the Messenger probe as it hurtles towards its final destination of the nearest planet to the sun, Mercury.

Vulcanoids, are asteroids that are thought to orbit between the sun and Mercury, although none have ever been discovered as yet and may not actually exist at all.

If found though they could contain material that could provide valuable clues as to how the rocky inner planets formed.

The name Vulcanoids comes from the hypothetical planet Vulcan which was at one time thought to orbit between the sun and Mercury.

The Messenger spacecraft has already had quite a journey since its launch in 2004. The probe has used both Venus and Earth as gravity assists and has already made three flybys of Mercury gathering valuable new information about the inner most planet.

Messenger will be placed in orbit around Mercury in March 2011 when it will begin a year long study of the planet.

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