The Consul of Japan in the Canary Islands Yoshihiro Miwa and his wife Ruriko Miwa recently visited the facilities of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) in La Laguna and the Observatorio del Teide in order to know the work on research and technological development carried out in this center of scientific excellence, as well as current and future collaborative projects with the Japanese country. In the OT they could get to know some of its main telescopes such as GREGOR, currently the largest solar telescope in Europe; the QUIJOTE experiment, dedicated to the characterisation of

Among the myriad discoveries presented in the second data release of the Gaia mission, there was an enigmatic color-magnitude diagram (CMD) of Milky Way halo stars, showing a striking double (blue/red) sequence. The blue sequence was linked to a major merger that our Galaxy experienced early in its history (Gaia-Enceladus). The origin of the red sequence was unclear, and it was generally associated, because of its chemical composition, with the Milky Way thick disk. However, the lack of accurate ages precluded a clear understanding of its nature. We compared this double-sequenced observed