As the MASS of an object increases, its gravitational force ___________. *

1 point
decreases
increases
stays the same

increases

As the mass of an object increases, its gravitational force increases.

Explanation:
To understand why the gravitational force increases with mass, we need to consider Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation. This law states that the gravitational force between two objects is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

Mathematically, we can represent this as:

F = G * (m1 * m2) / r^2

Where:
F: Gravitational force between the two objects
G: Gravitational constant
m1 and m2: Masses of the two objects
r: Distance between the centers of the two objects

From this equation, we can see that the gravitational force is directly proportional to the masses of the objects. So, as the mass of an object increases, the gravitational force it exerts also increases.

Therefore, the correct answer is "increases."

As the mass of an object increases, its gravitational force increases.