In the Voyager family portrait, the gray squares represent missing data in the images captured by the Voyager spacecraft’s imaging system. These squares are essentially placeholders for parts of the images that were not captured or transmitted successfully back to Earth. The transmission of data from Voyager to Earth can be affected by various factors, including the vast distance, limited bandwidth, and occasional interference. At the time the images were taken, the technology available had certain limitations, and any gaps in the data transmission would result in these gray squares appearing in the final composite images. They are an artifact of the data acquisition and transmission process rather than any physical feature of the image’s subjects.