The sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest is Saturn, the god of agriculture in Roman Mythology. As a Greel God he was called Cronus who was the son of Uranus and Gaia, the Earth Mother. He was also the father of Zeus, Jupiter in the Roman Mythology. Saturday is the his day of the week.
orbit: 1,429,400,000 km (9.54 AU) from Sun
diameter: 120,536 km (equatorial)
mass: 5.68e26 kg
Since prehistoric time man has known of the planet Saturn, of course they thought it was just a star. Galileo was confused in his observation of Saturn but the rings that orbit the planet. The telescope of his time were such low resolutin that the rings counl not be separated from the observatin of the planet. As the Earth in its rotation around the sun would at times enter the plane of orbit of the rings and other time not be in that plane the observation of Saturn made it look like it was changing shapes.