system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Does gravity have a range or speed?

So, light is a photon, and it gets emitted by something (like a star) and it travels at ~300,000 km/sec in a vacuum. I can understand this. Gravity on the other hand, as I understand it, isn't something that's emitted like some kind of tractor beam, it's a deformation in the fabric of the universe caused by a massive object. So, what I'm wondering is, is there a limit to the range at which this deformation has an effect. Does a big thing like a black hole not only have stronger gravity in general but also have the effects of it's gravity be felt further out than a small thing like my cat? Or does every massive object in the universe have some gravitational influence on every other object, if very neglegable, even if it's a great distance away? And if so, does that gravity move at some kind of speed, and how would it change if say two black holes merged into a bigger one? Additional mass isn't being created in such an event, but is "new gravity" being generated somehow that would then spread out from the merged object?

I realize that it's entirely possible that my concept of gravity is way off so please correct me if that's the case. This is something that's always interested me but I could never wrap my head around.

Edit:  I did not expect this question to blow up like this, this is amazing.  I've already learned more from reading some of these comments than I did in my senior year physics class.  I'd like to reply with a thank you to everyone's comments but that would take a lot of time, so let me just say "thank you" to all for sharing your knowledge here.  I'll probably be reading this thread for days.  Also special "thank you" to the individuals who sent silver and gold my way, I've never had that happen on Reddit before.
gpt
Yes, gravity has infinite range and changes in gravity propagate at the speed of light. It's a very analagous with electromagnetism, ie electric/magnetic fields and electromagnetic waves.

Every piece of matter in the universe is attracted to every other piece of matter in the universe. And when wild things happen, like neutron stars merging, the hiccup in gravity you feel from them spiraling into each other at half the speed of light arrives in almost lockstep with the light from the explosion from the matter they fling off.