Doppler shift measurements show that the velocity of rotation is higher on the inner region of the rings than on the outer regions of the rings. This means that the rings can't be solid. Then the rings must be made up of lots of little pieces of something very reflective. In fact they are made of small chunks of water ice. The sizes of the particles range from less than a millimeter, to tens of meters.
Most particles have the size and composition of a large and dirty snowball.
The rings appear very organized, that is, very circular patterns instead of random. The collisions between the particles keep them moving in circular orbits. Any particle that strays from the nearly perfect circles will hit another particle and bump around back and forth until it circularizes its velocity again. Imagine a moon whose orbit is slowly spiraling in taking the moon closer and closer to the planet. As the moon comes closer to the planet, the tidal forces stretch the moon more and more, deforming it.