Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig hns.com. NS
Answer
hns.com. 5 NS ns5.echostar.com.
hns.com. 5 NS ns2.hns.com.
hns.com. 5 NS ns1.hns.com.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
ns1.hns.com. 5 A 69.35.42.41
ns2.hns.com. 5 A 69.35.42.42
ns5.echostar.com. 5 A 139.85.4.15
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0