Personification is treating a nonperson as if a person, as when referring to a country or boat as a 'she'. Personification is quite common in science writing. Sometimes this is limited to no more that referring to an 'it' as he (e.g., the Sun) or she (e.g., the Moon), but sometimes anthropomorphic metaphors are used (suggesting the object acts or perceives or feels as a person).
Read about personification in science
In particular, there is a long tradition of referring to nature as as if a female person, and another page offers access to some of those examples (some now quite historical, but some more contemporary).
Read examples of nature personified
Some other examples of personification (of heavenly bodies, of elements, etc.) are abstracted on this page:
sciences
astronomy (urania): ♀- her
heavenly bodies
Earth: ♀- her, herself
- she knows and is practised in the whole of geometry (Johannes Kepler)
Jupiter: ♂ – his
Mars: ♂ – his
Mercury: ♂ – his
Moon: ♀ – her, she
- astronomy enquires into lunar periods and her anomalies and her distances (John Flamsteed)
- she alone of all the planets refers her revelations to the centre of the earth (Nicolaus Copernicus)
- she refused to be bridled by the numbers of any astronomer (Edmund Halley)
Saturn: ♂ – whose
Sun: ♂ – himself, him
- comet in access towards him has been retarded in his recess as accelerated in his access (Isaac Newton)
- sun burns faster when convex side of plano-convex lens is towards him (John Flamsteed)
- Sun commands things to tend towards himself (Edmund Halley)
Venus: ♀ – she
- it takes her more than twenty days to rotate on her axis (Fred Hoyle)
- she modestly hides her surface (Fred Hoyle)
- Venus was named as she shines at morning or evening (Nicolaus Copernicus)
comet: ♂ – his
- comet in access towards him has been retarded in his recess as accelerated in his access (Isaac Newton)
