NEWTON’S LAW OF GRAVITATION
Newton put forth another important theory about the Universe: Any two objects in
the Universe exert an attractive force on each other—called the gravitational force
—whose strength is proportional to the product of the objects’ masses and
inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. If we let G be
the universal gravitational constant, which is equal to 6.67 × 10−11 N • m^2 /kg^2 ,
then the strength of the gravitational force is given by the equation
F =
*Gravity is always a pulling force.The forces F1-on-2 and F2-on-1 act along the line that joins the bodies and form an
action/reaction pair.