The correct response is: increases.
According to Newton's law of universal gravitation, the force of gravity between two objects is given by the formula:
\[ F = \frac{G m_1 m_2}{r^2} \]
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 objects.
If the distance \( r \) decreases while the masses \( m_1 \) and \( m_2 \) remain the same, the value of \( r^2 \) becomes smaller, which causes the gravitational force \( F \) to increase.