Summary Jupiter is the boss of the solar system. A planet that is two and a half times more massive than all the other planets combined. This is a world that has not only dominated the solar system, but shaped it. We knew that it was surrounded by a plethora of moons, some of them as big as planets, and Jupiter seemed to emit bursts of intense radiation as though the planet were some furious cosmic machine.

When humankind first ventured into space, there was a realisation that Earth is surrounded by bands of lethal radiation, caused by our magnetic field trapping energetic particles flowing from the sun. Could something similar be causing the powerful emissions from Jupiter?

But until the late 1970s, we really didn't know much about what was going on inside this monstrous planet.

With deeply insightful stories from the scientists and engineers that worked on a series of missions to the Jovian system, this film tells the story of how our robotic emissaries peered behind the swirling veil of Jupiter. The Pioneer missions giving us a tantalising glimpse of the system for the first time, and following just behind them, the incredible Voyager spacecraft, that leave the scientists awestruck at the implications. A tale of a colossal world spinning at 40,000 kilometres per hour, its moon Io spewing volcanic eruptions hundreds of kilometres into space above it, and the icy moon Europa, strangely devoid of impact craters, hinting at mysterious mechanisms at work beneath the ice. Team members from the Galileo mission describe how their small probe dived into the clouds of the gas giant and revealed puzzling results that have confounded our ideas of planetary formation ever since. Describing the fate of the intrepid probe as it fell towards the gigantic sphere of liquified metal that lurks beneath the surface of the giant planet.

The passion and knowledge of the storytellers in this film will give the audience a true depth of knowledge about the greatest planet in our solar system. And it will leave them in no doubt, that though Jupiter may be a failed star, the Jovian system is almost a solar system in its own right.

• Documentary