XML getAttributes() retorna NULL (não deveria)

DocumentBuilderFactory factory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
//factory.setValidating(true);
DocumentBuilder builder = factory.newDocumentBuilder();
builder.setErrorHandler(new DefaultHandler());
Document descriptor = builder.parse(xmlFile);
	      	 
Node xmlRoot = descriptor.getFirstChild();
System.out.println("nome = " + xmlRoot.getNodeName());
System.out.println("tem atributos? " + xmlRoot.hasAttributes());
NamedNodeMap attrs = xmlRoot.getAttributes();
System.out.println(attrs.getNamedItem("nome"));