Most likely : Someone script kiddie tried to attack-it, and some user had a week password. There is tons of bot farm attacking any device connected to the internet all the time, as indiviual, we usually have a firewall/router between our PC and internet (so the whole family gets wifi), and keep all the "remote access services" off. But a telescope is typically the kind of infrastructure where "remote access" is necessary meaning that you're a target for attacker
There is tons of bot farm attacking any device connected to the internet all the time
A neat experiment is to configure an SSH server that has no users. It'll allow connections but it isn't possible to actually login. It'll also have a log where you can view login attempts. Within a few days of going online, your logs should be filled will tens of thousands of login attempts from IP addresses from around the world.
You should see what gets sent to web servers. All sorts of exploit strings ranging from IIS to WordPress.
Yup, in the last 24 hours, my little home server had 244 failed ssh logins and a bunch of web application attacks. If it's on the internet, it's under attack constantly. Fall behind on your patching, and you're going to get popped.
A lot of these telescopes are on top of the tallest mountain around. Which in turn was probably pretty significant to whoever might have been dispossessed of the local area. So they can be surprisingly unpopular.
Like imagine if space aliens showed up, stole all the good land, killed loads of people, and then decided to build tools for their own notion of peaceful scientific exploration on top of Mount Everest, Mount Rushmore, and Half Dome.
Also, that Russian moon lander just crashed, so it could also be some kind of secret space cyber war of countries trying to make each other seem incompetent.
Ego or aliens that don't want us to see something.
I would go with the simpler reason. Aliens.
It could be a lot of things ranging from state threat actors looking for a toehold into a network or to cost the government time and resources or people doing it for the lulz.
I’ve seen this before. Not to worry, some hotshot Naval officer will recruit old WWII veterans to sail an old battleship to defeat the aliens.