Where is allocated variable reference, in stack or in the heap?

Question

I have a question

What happend when I declare a variable inside a method, for example.

void myMethod() {
    Ship myShip = new Ship();
}

Where

Answer 1

Currently, all Java objects are allocated on the heap. There is talk that Java 7 might do escape analysis and be able to allocate on the stack, but I don't know if the proposal is finalized yet. Here's the RFE.

Edit: Apparently, it's already in early builds of JDK 7. (The article says it will also be in JDK 6u14, but I can't find confirmation.)