An example of personification in popular science writing:
"Venus might be called the twin sister of the Earth, and therefore naturally claims our attention first. Venus is not very aptly named, for she modestly hides her surface by a perpetual bank of white cloud. The nature of this cloud is a bit of a mystery…
There is another mystery about Venus. According to the observational astronomers it takes her more than twenty days to rotate on her axis. As it seems probable that all the planets at their birth had rotation periods of about ten hours, it is an interesting question as to what process has slowed down the rotation of Venus to such a marked extent."
Fred Hoyle (1960) The Nature of the Universe (Revised ed.)
Venus is traditionally personification as a 'she' ('her') historically being identified with the goddess of love of the same name.
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Many examples of personification are included in 'Creative comparisons: Making science familiar through language. An illustrative catalogue of figurative comparisons and analogies for science concepts'. Free Download.
Referring to Venus as the twin sister of earth can be considered a simile.
Read about examples of science similes
Many examples of science similes are listed in 'Creative Comparisons: Making Science Familiar through Language. An illustrative catalogue of figurative comparisons and analogies for science concepts'. Free Download.
The reference to the 'birth' of planets is surely a metaphor, although perhaps one so frequently used by astronomers to be a dead metaphor.
