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The story of Sedna and how our television
got its name
When we first discussed the question of choosing an appropriate, yet very special name for the television, we knew that we had to express the unique idea of broadcasting for Czech and Slovak communities around the globe. At the same time we wanted to pinpoint the fact that our television was born in Canada. Nonetheless, we wanted a name that would sound the same in Czech, Slovak and English, a name that could not be confused with any similar concept or idea. The story of the recent discovery of the tenth planet of our solar system Sedna became the perfect match for our new project. Not only does Sedna represent something new and unusual, it also reflects the Canadian background of the Czech and Slovak television around the world. The name is associated with the indigenous peoples that inhabit Canada's north. The Inuit people named their goddess of the sea Sedna, the mother of the cold ocean…On 15 March 2004, astronomers from Caltech, Gemini Observatory, and Yale University announced the discovery of the coldest, most distant object known to orbit the Sun. The discovery was made using the Samuel Oschin Telescope at the Palomar Observatory east of San Diego on 14 November 2003 by the team of Mike Brown, Chad Trujillo and David Rabinowitz. The object was found at a distance 90 times greater than that from the Sun to the Earth, about 3 times further than Pluto, the most distant planet known. Sedna is the most distant object ever discovered in our solar system. Its orbit is extremely elliptical, in contrast to all of the much closer planets, and it takes Sedna 10,500 years to circle the Sun. Sedna is probably smaller than 1800 km in circumference. It is almost directly below Mars, and forms a triangle with the very bright Venus. Some astronomers are convinced that Sedna is the tenth planet of our solar system. Others disagree and refer to Sedna as a planetoid.
Because of its frigid temperatures, the team has named the object Sedna, after the Inuit goddess of the sea who is thought to live at the bottom of the frigid arctic ocean, and from whom all sea creatures were created. Sedna was a beautiful Inuit girl who was too proud to marry just anyone. One day her father chose a husband for her. He was a hunter dressed in furs who appeared to be well-off but whose face was hidden. Sedna was placed aboard of his kayak and taken to his house on a deserted island. When he pulled down his hood, Sedna started screaming from fear because he was the Raven in disguise.
Sedna was very unhappy. Her father felt guilty and decided to rescue her. He loaded up his kayak, arrived to the island, and soon he and Sedna were paddling away. The angry Raven tried to sink their kayak. The frightened father threw Sedna into the ocean. She swam back reaching up but the father cut off her fingers. The frozen fingers fell into the ocean and turned into seals and whales. Sedna could fight no more and began to sink herself. However, Sedna did not die. She became the goddess of the sea. Hunters have a great respect for her. When she is angry and makes storms, a shaman is obliged to swim down to her and comb her long tangled black hair. This calms her down. Then she releases ocean mammals allowing the Inuit to catch and eat them. For this reason after a hunter catches a seal he drops water into the mammal's mouth, a gesture to thank Sedna for her kindness in allowing him to feed his family.
