 Gauss's law for gravity

The outward flux of the Newtonian gravitational field through a closed surface is $-4\pi G$ times the enclosed mass. A sphere around a point mass establishes the coefficient; superposition extends the integral law to general mass distributions. The minus sign expresses attractive gravity. A symmetric Gaussian surface can turn the flux relation into a local field calculation, but the integral law alone does not imply that the field is uniform on an arbitrary surface.