The illustration, taken from the software, The Dynamic Solar System, shows the positions of the planets for August 12, when the Moon is new or directly aligned with the Sun. In the diagram the Moon is superimposed on the planet Venus; the planets are shown much larger than they really are. Venus is almost directly aligned with the sun, as close as it gets to Earth each Venus cycle. That's millions of miles. Much, much further out, Earth is also aligned with Neptune.  The Moon is new, which amplifies planetary influences. One of the influences of Neptune I have noticed is sleep. Furthermore Mercury is moving rapidly into  this line up and Saturn, although slightly past the line up may still have some influence. Solar activity will probably increase for a few days around this time. The software program which produced this diagram gives numerical data for both heliocentric and geocentric positions and can be set in motion or set to any date +/-10,000 years.