An example of metaphors used in popular science writing:
"A photon begins its life, travels – potentially for billions of years – and then is destroyed. Each end of its existence, birth and death, involves an interaction with matter. It's the electrical charge of the electron that creates the photon in the first place, kicking off the elegant dance between electrical and magnetic components that Maxwell first described. And it's another electron's electrical field that wipes it out at the end. Q.E.D. [Quantum Electrodynamics] completes the life cycle of light…it's thanks to a charged particle like an electron that a photon of light begins or ends its life."
Brian Clegg
Clegg, B. (2015). Light Years. The extraordinary story of mankind' fascination with light. Icon.
