According to Newton's law of universal gravitation, what does the gravitational force depend on?

The gravitational force between two objects, as described by Newton's law of universal gravitation, depends on both the masses of the objects and the distance between their centers. This law states that every point mass attracts every other point mass with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between their centers.

In mathematical terms, the gravitational force ( F ) can be expressed as:

[ F = G \frac{m_1 m_2}{r^2} ]

where ( F ) is the gravitational force, ( G ) is the gravitational constant, ( m_1 ) and ( m_2 ) are the masses of the two objects, and ( r ) is the distance between the centers of the two masses.

This relationship highlights that both the masses contribute to the gravitational attraction, and increasing the distance reduces the force significantly due to the inverse square law. Therefore, understanding that gravitational force is influenced by both mass and distance is crucial in many areas of physics and engineering.