It's easy enough to think of examples of metaphors that can be used in a scientific context. For example, if it were predicted that in a proposed chemical reaction a liquid would boil furiously, that would be metaphorical use of language, and carrying out the experiment might validate or disprove it.

At a more sophisticated level, when an attempt is made to help us understand concepts such the bending of space by gravity, and this is illustrated by drawings such as these, it is fair to refer to this as the use of a kind of metaphor.