Here is a one-off space-themed painting in acrylic on canvas of a theoretical giant lava wave on Jupiter's innermost moon Io.

The four Galilean moons of giant planet Jupiter were first observed by Galileo when he turned his new telescope towards the heavens in 1610.  It's also been known since NASA's Voyager probes visited Jupiter in the late 1970s that Io is the most actively volcanic body in the solar system and more recently NASA's Juno probe has also begun observations of the Jupiter system. 

Io's moon-wide volcanism is caused by tidal friction induced by Jupiter's huge gravitational field, Io's elliptical orbit and the action of other Galilean moons in orbital resonance heating Io's interior.  Io doesn't have much of an atmosphere but what it does have are hundreds of active volcanoes spewing lava and ash many kilometres into space, plus it has massive lava lakes in constant churning motion.

Io's elliptical orbit also takes it in and out of the radiation belts caused by Jupiter's magnetic field trapping high-energy particles from the sun.  So Io really is a tortured world mixing together extremes of both vulcanism and radiation.

This artwork envisages that huge waves are induced by these tidal forces on the largest such lava lake, which is called Loki Patera.  The theorised lava wave has been painted to resemble Japanese artist Hokusai's famous work "The Great Wave off Kangawa".  The main factor to recognise is that there is much lower gravity on Io, meaning that a wave consisting of lava could, in theory at least, reach a similar height to Hokusai's great ocean wave.  Some key differences are - the active volcano in the distance obviously can't be Mount Fuji and clearly there are no fisherman in rowing boats battling against the lava wave - see listing photos for the Hokusai original.

An impressive and inspiring piece of space-themed decorative artwork that's truly different with its unique take on Hokusai's famous and much-loved original. 

With the James Web space telescope giving a host of new detailed images of the cosmos and NASA's new Artemis probe kick-starting man's return to space, with new landings planned on the Moon and maybe in time Mars, it's likely that space-themed artwork could see a huge resurgence in popularity.

The size of this artwork is 21 inches wide by 12 inches high and the piece will be well wrapped and shipped by courier.

Thanks for looking.

PS  more space-themed artwork is available, mainly on a collection only basis owing to large sizes - usually at least 4 foot square canvasses - see final listing photos for a couple of examples.