Question

Prelecture Exploration: Gravitational Forces Mika is interested in the story of Isaac Newton, who, she has read, might have seen an apple falling from a tree or perhaps was hit on the head by one. That apple and seeing the Moon were supposedly what led him to think up and to develop his theory of universal gravitation. She and her friend Esperanza are intrigued with Newton's discovery that the same force that causes apples to fall is responsible for the Moon's orbiting Earth, and they want to understand more about gravitational forces. The gravitational force between two massive particles is attractive. This simulation shows two masses and the graph of their gravitational attraction to each other versus the separation distance. Mika and Esperanza can use the sliders to adjust the mass of each particle. They can click and drag either particle to change the separation distance. FIx 10N 16 IF 1 F1 = Fals 1.71 x 10N 12 10 6 4 Imm 100 200 100 1 Separation distance between and 0 1

Answer 1

The gravitational force between two bodies is proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

F_g $\large \alpha$ (m₁ m₂)/r²

F_g = G (m₁m₂)/r²   

^{So, force depends upon the masses of the body. Here G is universal gravitational constant.}

So, increasing the m₂ as the m₁ is constant, the gravitational force will be increased according to the above formula if the distance betwen the masses kept constant (or remains same).

So, this is option 1.