RNAs are the center of biology, yet their characterization by high resolution methods are hampered by dynamic heterogeneity (for X-ray crystallography) and size (for nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy). I describe new technologies we have developed to tackle the size and dynamic heterogeneity problem, and showcase how solution conditions can trigger a partitioning of minor populated states with rapidly exchanging predominant conformers with transient lifetimes that until now were invisible to traditional structural probing. Our results suggest that these transient (milliseconds), lowly populated states (<10%) might be  the rule rather than the exception, and we suggest these "opaque" states likely enhance ligand recognition and may serve key ubiquitous roles in RNA biology.