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We witness the closure of the tesseract once Coop successfully sends the singularity data back to Murph. And then it appears that Coop is sent back through the wormhole to our home galaxy.

Is the implication that the wormhole remained open, and only the tesseract was closed?

If so, then I imagine as soon as Coop rendezvouses with Brand, the rest of humanity will follow (at least the ones who don't prefer living on a giant cylindrical habitat)? At any rate, it doesn't seem likely that Dr. Brand would be alone for very long, which takes some of the urgency away from Coop's final voyage.

adamesque
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    I don't think Coop would have left to meet Brand if the wormhole wasn't open, because there wouldn't be any way for him to reach her otherwise. – Jack B Nimble Nov 24 '14 at 23:35
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    Yeah, you're right — I forgot the wormhole opens into another galaxy, so (almost) no amount of relativistic travel would get him there in his lifetime, stasis or no. Wormhole must be open. – adamesque Nov 25 '14 at 03:26
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    “Still” is an interesting word when time travel is involved. – Paul D. Waite Oct 03 '15 at 00:28
  • TL;DR; In my perception, Worm hole is closed, Dr. Cooper has already solved the problem of gravity. They are now able to travel from Earth to Jupiter in less time probably days. I think there is a chance that they are nigh capable of creating worm holes in the sequel. – ashveli Apr 05 '19 at 14:48

4 Answers4

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No. The wormhole is closed according to Christopher Nolan, the director:

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/11/08/jonathan-nolan-interstellar-spoilers

Nolan: ... By the end of Cooper's journey, the wormhole is gone. It's up to us now to undertake the massive journey of spreading out across the face of our galaxy. Brand is still somewhere out there on the far side of the wormhole. The wormhole has disappeared entirely. It's gone.

IGN: And he has to try and get to Brand in this little ship?

Nolan: That's the idea.

This, however is confusing, even though the director said it himself. The movie implies that the worm hole is open and that Cooper is going to travel back through the worm hole and reunite with Brand.

If the worm hole was gone, then how would Cooper ever possibly find Brand? She is in a completely different galaxy that would take thousands? millions? of years to reach by ship without the worm hole. If that is the case, then where is Cooper going in that little 1-man ship? What is the intent? It doesn't really make sense in the context of what you see at the end of the film. The movie certainly implies that Cooper and TARS steal the ship to fly back through the wormhole and reunite with Brand. This is the only interview I've seen where Nolan has explicitly stated this.

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Jake Wilson
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    Disregarding any effects of relativity, even if Cooper and his ship could accelerate to a large fraction of light speed and make it there within a stasis extended lifetime, Brand would be, at the best, several decades older than him, after having spent time establishing the colony and returning to her own stasis chamber (did she still have one at the end?) – Xantec Oct 02 '15 at 21:41
  • She did still have static chambers from the Endurance, however I don't think she would be much older. The majority of time-speed-up (I don't know what you call it) Cooper and Brand spent together so they would age roughly the same amount. Also, Brand's planet in the end was not near the black hole like Miller and Mann's planet and therefore did not have the time slippage issue. It's assumed time on her planet passed at the same rate as in our solar system. – Jake Wilson Oct 03 '15 at 04:25
  • Well, if wormhole was open then there would be already lots of people on other side of it - travel there would be easier then building superhabitat. And yes, that's stupid, another thing manipulated by creators thinking that people wouldn't care. – Mithoron Jul 11 '16 at 16:31
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Depends on where Cooper Station is, which I think doesn't matter.

After returning from the first planet (Miller's planet, with the sunamis and the crazy time dilation), Coop and Brand are the same age and Murph is 23 years older (Murph is at least as old as Coop was when he left) and Romilly has gone gray waiting for them on the Endurance.

Coop and Brand stay on the same time scale relative to each other, up until the moment that they are slingshotting around Gargantua and Coop ditches Brand so that she can make it to the third planet (Edmund's planet). The closer you are to Gargantua the more extreme the time dilation. So, as Coop falls closer to the black hole, he would experience time ever slower and slower than Brand (and both of them much slower than Earth); but on the other hand Coop was only falling for like a few minutes (from his perspective) before he enters the tesseract. So it's hard to tell how much difference there is between Coop and Brand as they are both very near Gargantua but Coop was that much closer for a few minutes.

Then Coop is in the tesseract. Although gravity leaks through the tesseract back in time, Coop cannot go back in time (otherwise, he could have just told Murph what to do in person instead of having to manipulate gravity waves; for that matter, "they" could have gone back in time their damn selves, or at least sent Morse Code themselves, instead of taking the stupidly big risk that is the movie). So, I'm guessing when you emerge from the tesseract, you have not gone back in time. (You may have not moved forward in time either; at any rate Coop was only in there for a few minutes so no big loss).

After the tesseract, Coop awakens on Cooper Station (the ring habitat), and Murph is dyingly old. So like another 70 years have passed for Murph (she's like 100), and just days for Coop (since the mission started), and perhaps days or weeks for Brand. Remember also that Earth only had a few more years of life left, which means that Cooper Station was launched very shortly after the adult Murph worked out the calculations, which means that Murph grew old while living on Cooper Station, as no one was living on Earth.

All three planets on the Gargantua side of the wormhole experience significant time dilation relative to Earth (remember even Dr. Mann was marooned on his planet for so long that he lost hope and went crazy). So if Cooper Station left Earth like 70 years ago (or before Earth died anyway), it's possible that all those years did in fact pass (for Murph) in the few minutes that Coop and Brand were slingshotting around Gargantua's event horizon. Maybe Cooper Station emerges from the wormhole around the time that Coop and Brand have completed their slingshot. (Also assuming Murph's gravity calculations also allow rapid flight from Earth to the wormhole near Saturn; it will take NASA Cassini Space Probe 20 years before it gets to Saturn in 2017). So end result: Murph is old, Coop wakes up from the tesseract, and maybe Brand is roughly the same time scale as Coop. Coop picks up Brand at nearby Edmund's Planet. No need for wormhole--could be closed, could be open. Nobody knows.

On the other hand, if Cooper Station is on this side of the wormhole then same diff. Murph is still crazy old, but Coop could not get to Brand except through the wormhole, which must still be open. Again nobody knows.

Xplodotron
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    I'm pretty sure the movie places Cooper Station around Jupiter or Saturn, so I think it's pretty definitively in our solar system. But you're also right; doesn't matter. It's open. – adamesque Nov 25 '14 at 03:27
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    This seems like a very long-winded answer to a simpler question, but I enjoyed the explanation anyway. +1 – Chris Cirefice Nov 25 '14 at 04:40
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    The slingshot took 50-odd years; that's clear. As for Dr Mann, I don't believe the other planets experienced [significant] time dilation (this was a plot point) - Dr Mann had however been there on his own for 12 years normal time knowing that he was not going to get rescued (until he was already far gone enough to lie about the planet in order to be rescued). The closing montage strongly suggests that Brand and Coop have experienced close to the same amount of time, that she's really only just starting setting up camp. – Lightness Races in Orbit Nov 25 '14 at 10:41
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    You are probably right that the other planets don't have significant time dilation. But, from Mann's perspective, he was there for 10 years because the original twelve Lazarus scientists were sent 10 years prior to Coop's mission PLUS the 23 years that Dr. Romilly and the rest of the universe experienced while Coop and Brand were on planet Miller. So like 33 years. But yes you are right he was there for 10 or 12 years before he decided to lie and send the beacon. And true, Mann was in cryo for some of that time too. Anyway, Mann was there for a long ass time. – Xplodotron Nov 26 '14 at 21:32
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The film's official novelisation would suggest that the wormhole is still in place and remains active.

Although at this point in the story Coop isn't really up to scratch with current affairs, it's pretty likely that by this point someone would have, oh, mentioned to him that the wormhole was gone:

"Maybe they had already sent somebody to help her. Any of the Rangers was capable of making the trip, what with the wormhole still sitting right where it had been. He resolved to bring it up next time he saw the administrator. Wolf or no Wolf, Brand would need help."

This heavily conflicts with what the Film's Director has said on the subject but in this instance I think we can make our own judgments on whether he was mistaken, mischievous or malign in his response.

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Valorum
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Pertaining to the wormhole status. IF "they" placed the wormhole there then you would need a huge source of energy to create it and maintain it. The Gargantua black hole would be my assumption as that source of holding it open. Maybe Jupiter is holding it open on our side?? Somehow?? So if the tesseract was removed and that energy source was removed, then it would close. Is my thought.

Pertaining to Dr. Brand and Coop. Dr. Brand is probably slightly out of sync with Coop after their separation so she is probably a little older than she was, then he is... << if that makes sense. Also, there wouldn't have been a rescue sent out for her yet. Because she would have just setup her beacon, the time dilation effect would have meant some 90 or so years later from when Coop and the gang took off they might have gotten a signal thru the wormhole. But after the wormhole closed then it would have taken even longer for the signal to reach them. Because they would lose their window to the other system.

Pertaining to Coop finding Brand OK, so this is a lot of speculation. BUT there is a slight possibility that when the wormhole was swinging around that we could see recognizable constellations and are able to get an "idea" of where this place was. So he might have some clue as to where she is in the universe... BUT that doesn't matter... I mean even if he was able to trace her to a single galaxy.. It would still be like looking for a needle in a stack of needles (where the needle stack is the size of the mass of earth... or something... probably worse). IF we solved the equations for gravity and were able to lift off from earth, then maybe we can warp the space around a small ship like Coop left in to travel faster than light IF they have an enormous energy supply to feed it. Then if he could possibly go fast enough maybe...I'm pretty sure he'd never find her... But, another idea in the movie was that love transcended space/time...so maybe he could track her using love???? love-dar?

hackdotslashdotkill
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